Mont LingardMont Lingard is the leading historian on the historic Newfoundland Railway, on which his five previous books have sold over 20,000 copies.

Born in Bishop's Falls in 1930, Lingard grew up near railway operations. The Newfoundland Railway wa practically in his front yard, and the Botwood Railway ran just behind his family's home. He started school in a one-room school in Antle's Lane and graduated from a six-room school near Canning's Lane in 1948, the only student in his class.

Lingard was hired on with the Railway as a callboy-student fireman in the summer of 1948. A year later he started work as a locomotive fireman on the coal-burning locomotives, and in 1951 he moved on to the roundhouse office where he worked until the summer of 1968 when he resigned and started work as business manager with the Grand Falls Amalgamated School Board and then the Exploits Valley Integrated School Board. Consequently, Lingard had two sequential two-decade-long careers-first with the Railway and then in education-before finally retiring in 1989.

Lingard loved the Railway and was fascinated by the rugged and secluded Gaff Topsail area, rising above the island's central plateau with its immense snowdrifts. Starting his tireless research in 1996-he has more photos and recorded interviews with former Newfoundland railroaders than anyone else-Lingard wrote his series on the Railway, one for each of the four subdivisions. His last book, published in 2000, was about the "Newfie Bullet", a cross-island passenger train that operated until 1969.

Lingard presently resides in Badger, NL. Read More Read Less