Marvin Clemons

Marvin M. Clemons (born c. 1947 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 1965 and became a towerman at the Birmingham Terminal Station, operating switches to guide trains through the station. He transferred to the Atlanta Terminal a year later, but was soon drafted into the U. S. Army. He enrolled at the Army's Infantry Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. He served during the Vietnam War in Korea and Viet Nam, then returned to Birmingham to pursue a masters' in career counseling at UAB.

Clemons took a job 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 private career counselor. He served as president of the Alabama Career Development Association and the Alabama Association for Psychological Type.

In 2007 Clemons and Lyle Key co-authored and self-published Birmingham Rails: The Last Golden Era, considered a definitive pictoral history of train activity in the Birmingham area from the 1940s until Amtrak came on the scene in the 1970s. He has been active in the group organizing a Birmingham Railroad Historical Society and has assisted in efforts to turn the Leeds Depot into a railroad museum.

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