author
D. B. (David Blyth) Hanna
1858–1938
Best known for his memoir of railway life, this Scottish-born Canadian executive wrote from firsthand experience as railroads reshaped Canada. His recollections blend personal history with a vivid sense of a fast-changing era.
1 Audiobook
Trains of Recollection Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes
by D. B. (David Blyth) Hanna
About the author
Born in Thornliebank, Scotland, in 1858, D. B. Hanna emigrated to Canada in 1882 and built a long career in railways. He rose through accounting and management work to become a leading figure in the Canadian Northern Railway and later the first president of the Canadian National Railways.
As a writer, he is remembered for Trains of Recollection, a memoir drawn from fifty years of railway service in Scotland and Canada. Told with the perspective of someone who had seen the industry from the inside, the book offers readers both personal memories and a valuable picture of railway expansion in Canada.
Hanna died in Toronto in 1938. Today, his writing stands out not as fiction but as a lively eyewitness account from a man who helped shape the world he described.