Marvin Clemons

Marvin M. Clemons (born 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida) is a retired rail operator, newspaper editor, career counselor and railroad historian. He is the co-author of Birmingham Rails: The Last Golden Era.

Clemons moved to Birmingham in 1958 and later became an operator-towerman at the Birmingham Terminal Station, controlling train movements through Terminal Station. He transferred to the Atlanta Terminal a year later, but was soon drafted into the U. S. Army. He was admitted to the Army's Infantry Officer Candidate School and commissioned a Second Lieutenant. He served during the Vietnam War and made the rank of caption before returning to Birmingham to pursue a journalism degree and later a masters' in counseling at UAB.

Clemons worked as assistant city editor for the Birmingham Post-Herald and was later named the paper's transportation editor. He authored an award-winning series on transportation systems in the Birmingham District.

After leaving the paper, Clemons became a licensed professional counselor in private practice. He has served as president of the Alabama Career Development Association and the Alabama Association for Psychological Type.

He has also been active in the group that organized the Mid-South Chapter of the Railroad and Locomotive Historical Society and assisted in efforts to turn the Leeds Depot into a railroad exhibit.

In 2007 Clemons and Lyle Key co-authored and self-published Birmingham Rails: The Last Golden Era, considered a definitive pictorial history of train activity in the Birmingham area from the 1940s until Amtrak came on the scene in the 1970s. He followed up with another book, Great Temple of Travel, an illustrated history of the Birmingham Terminal Station.

Clemons and his wife Kayron, a registered nurse, reside in Roebuck Springs and attend Wilson Chapel United Methodist Church.

References

• "Clemons to help turn depot into railroad museum." (September 10, 2008) Leeds News