000 03003cam a22003733u 4500
001 76892
003 UtSlPG
005 20260610134759.0
006 m
007 cr n
008 260607r20251869utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d
040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aPZ
100 1 _aOptic, Oliver,
_d1822-1897
245 1 0 _aLightning Express
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2025
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
490 1 _aThe Lake Shore series.
500 _aRelease date is 2025-09-17
508 _aTerry Jeffress and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
520 _a"Lightning Express; or, The Rival Academies" by Oliver Optic is a juvenile adventure novel written in the late 19th century. It centers on a student-run railroad and an escalating rivalry between the Toppleton Institute and the Wimpleton Academy along Lake Ucayga. The story follows Wolf Penniman, a level-headed young engineer, alongside the imperious Tommy Toppleton and the reckless Waddie Wimpleton, as schoolboy politics, railroading, and military-style drills spark real-world tensions. Themes of leadership, pride, and moral duty frame the spirited contests between the two academies. The opening of the novel unfolds at a noisy stockholders’ meeting of the student-managed Lake Shore Railroad, where Tommy Toppleton’s heavy-handed presidency faces a revolt. After a procedural tussle, the boys adjourn to Grass Springs for an election and a celebratory supper; Tommy is humiliatingly voted out on the first ballot, restored on a second only because his rival, Skotchley, refuses the office. The students then choose the Horse Shoe island for their annual encampment—largely to needle their Wimpleton rivals—and prepare a rapid march. Wolf, urged by Major Toppleton to “keep the peace,” helps expedite transport, but at Grass Springs the Wimpleton flotilla blocks the channel. Tommy rashly orders a steamer to force passage; Wolf and the captain try to avoid harm, yet Waddie leads a bold boarding that seizes the forward deck, locks Company B below, and stops the engine. With the steamer captured and tempers high, Waddie tries to coerce Wolf into running the machinery, setting the stage for a dangerous standoff. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cBoston: Lee and Shepard, 1869
653 _aConduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
653 _aRailroad stories
700 1 _aKilburn, Samuel Smith,
_d1831-1903
700 1 _aSayer, Reimunt
830 0 _aThe Lake Shore series.
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/lightningexpress00inopti/page/n6/mode/1up
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76892
999 _c117617
_d117617