Whistle for the Crossing

by Marguerite de Angeli

A young boy travels with his father, a railroad engineer, on the first train between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

107 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Marguerite de Angeli was an American writer and illustrator of children's books including the 1950 Newbery Award winning book The Door in the Wall. She wrote and illustrated twenty-eight of her own books, and illustrated more than three dozen books and numerous magazine stories and articles for other authors.

Reviews

[Clark Hallman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whistle for the Crossing is a children’s novel, but it provides some understanding of what traveling on the Pennsylvania Railroad from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh must have been like in 1852. It also presents some historical and geographic information about the event and the locale. The book explains that previously trains had been running on the Main Line of the Pennsy only as far as Columbia, where the Juniata River runs alongside. From Columbia, freight was transported on to Pittsburgh by canal boat. This trip was the first covering the complete distance on “steel rails” and it took three days and two nights. In the story, Eddie Andrew Moore lives near Philadelphia with his sister, Lavinia, and their father in a community named Penn’s Manor on the banks of the Delaware River. Eddie’s father, Edward Terhorst Moore, was an engineer on the Camden and Amboy Railroad. However, Mr. Moore was asked by the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad to operate the first train run from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and then to remain as an engineer with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in Pittsburgh. This typical children’s story describes Eddie’s exciting ride on that first train trip between the two cities with his father as the engineer. The locomotive’s name was F.K. Heisley and the train consisted of one freight car and one passenger car. Many stops were made along the way to pick up supplies, e.g., water and wood which had been stashed at appropriate intervals, and for food and overnight hotel or boardinghouse accommodations. Locations mentioned during the trip included Fairmount Park (“the largest park in the world”), Paoli, Downingtown, Lancaster (Amish men were abundant), Harrisburg, the Rockville Bridge (the new one built two years earlier), Altoona (Indians lived near there and Eddie had a friendly encounter with them while a hotbox was being attended to), Hollidaysburg, Johnstown, and McKeesport. In the Allegheny Mountains the story included a stationary engine that hauled the train up an incline and then eased it down the other side. Although the book is not intended to provide totally detailed or accurate information about the historic first run, I found it to be appropriate for children and mildly interesting.

[Eliza Fitzgerald]

Read aloud with 5 year old son. Not sure if he followed it or not. It's hard to tell with him 🙄