How to Build Your Own Railroad Overpass

About the Book

A slice of down-home life in and around Reedville, Alabama, Overpass serves up a small-town intrigue. Basing his book on a true story, author Jack Ledford has used fictitious names to protect the innocent – as well as the guilty and the shy. It seems that the tracks leading up to a railroad crossing are delaying traffic. School kids are getting home late and parents are not happy. Worse yet, hard-to-see oncoming trains have killed a few local drivers. The solution – build a street overpass above the railroad tracks. But the country-fried skullduggery of rural southern politics makes getting an overpass built anything but easy. Tom Eske, local surveyor, desperately wants the overpass built. Sharing his desire, is school bus driver Amona Taiyah, the earthly lady who Tom would have as his wife. Convincing Amona to marry him is about a hard task as getting that confounded overpass erected. Removing the turn up wreckage was a tedious aftermath, as the crushed pieces had to be winched up from the creek bed once at a time and gathered onto the wrecker, the awful scene illuminated by floodlights and the headlights of a half-dozen police cars positioned on both sides of the creek. To the left toward Bethlehem City, I could see more than a half mile of clear track, but to my right the view was entirely obstructed by thickets of shrubs and trees along the railroad. The two little red-flasher warning lights were gone and so was the ding-ding, gone with all the other wreckage, just a few wires left sticking up by the tracks. I didn’t have to wait very long. Suddenly, a police car dashed up and blocked the crossing while the early morning freight train came roaring through there blasting away on its horn.

About the Author

Jack Ledford was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. Now retired, he lives with his wife in Alabama. Overpass is his first book.