Transatlantic Train: The Untold Story of the Boston Merchant Who Launched Donald McKay to Fame

by Vincent J. Miles

Enoch Train rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most important maritime figures in nineteenth-century Boston: owner of the city’s most successful transatlantic shipping line and chief patron of its legendary shipbuilder, Donald McKay. In telling Enoch’s story, "Transatlantic Train" also provides fascinating insights into many of the era’s defining themes and events: The fierce rivalries between the United States and Britain, New York and Boston, sail and steam. The catastrophic Great Famine in Ireland (which drove the great-grandfather of a future President to emigrate to the US on one of Train’s ships). The California Gold Rush. The fabled clipper ships. The rising tensions between North and South over slavery. And the perils of sailing the stormy Atlantic. Weaving these subjects seamlessly into an absorbing narrative, "Transatlantic Train" becomes much more than the remarkable tale of a poor orphan from a country village who somehow rose to the top of Boston’s maritime community. It also serves as a guide to many of the currents and crosswinds that set Boston and the United States on course to become the city and nation they are today.

223 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2022

About the author

Vincent J. Miles grew up in Liverpool, England, but has lived in the Boston area for over 25 years. He has written three books that connect these places in very different ways, and contributed an essay to a fourth. (His second book appeared under the name Vincent Miles, without the "J": https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Hero-Cape....)

The first book describes the seven years he spent in Liverpool's Catholic minor seminary as a boy, and explores the connection between the Church's seminary system and the sexual abuse scandals that exploded in Boston in 2002. The second tells the story of a nineteenth-century sea captain from Massachusetts who became famous for (among other things) voyages he made to and from Liverpool, and whose career exemplifies many important aspects of US maritime history. And the third is the first-ever biography of a nineteenth-century Boston merchant who operated the most successful line of sailing ships between Boston and Liverpool, and played a pivotal role in the career of legendary shipbuilder Donald McKay.