Baby Train

Brunvand, an English professor at the University of Utah and author of four previous collections of modern folklore, including The Vanishing Hitchhiker , here offers another engaging compilation. He groups these resonant anecdotes, found in slightly modified versions around the world, into such sections as Sex and Scandal, and On-the-Job. In the former, the title piece tells of a train whose early morning whistle wakens couples in bed and leads to pregnancies. From the section titled Fun and Games, ``Built in a Day'' refers to taxi drivers' descriptions, tendered most often to tiresome American tourists, of such local monuments as the cathedral in Milan's Piazza di Duomo. Expanded from Brunvand's syndicated newspaper column, these accounts, for the most part, are attributed to the notorious FOAF--a ``friend of a friend.'' Illustrations not seen by PW . (Mar.)