Extreme Trains (History)

Bown, a train conductor in real life and a lifelong railroad aficionado, is clearly having the time of his life riding these powerful trains, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He makes what might seem mundane feel exciting and imparts a wealth of inside information about the rail industry. But parts of the show might seem a bit too esoteric to people who don't share his love of the railroad. Sure, it's interesting to see how steep a hill is too steep, but viewers might not need to learn the inner workings of both the specialized machines designed to remove the spikes that hold the tracks in the ground and the automated glue guns that fill in the resulting holes.

Extreme Trains is a worthy entry in the ever-expanding genre of reality shows that go behind the scenes in challenging and often dangerous jobs. But, while driving a 15,000-ton coal train is certainly a difficult and specialized task, watching it doesn't deliver the same drama as, say, watching crab fishermen battle the elements in Alaska or Canadian truckers haul their loads across frozen roads.