I have just posted my latest entry in my modellilng blog and I thought folks might be interested because I haven’t seen references to this book elsewhere.
I call the entry A prototype Bible and the permalink can be found at
The book is the American Civil Engineers’ Handbook, but was known in its day (from 1911 to the 1950s) as Merriman Wiggin after its main editors.
As I say there’s a lot for both the rivet counter and the more casual modeller.
One example I give is how I changed the location of my water towers because of this:
“The El Paso and Southern Railway found that even after chemical treatment of hard water supply on a division 128 miles long, the engine tonnage was reduced 25% and the cost of the locomotive was maintenance was increased $1000 per year per engine over the normal amount. To avoid this, a waterworks system from a supply of pure mountain water 130 miles distant was constructed at a cost of $1,300,000. Even this expenditure was proven to be amply justified."
Good idea! The old handbooks are treasures of information re principles and practices.
Some other good sources are Locomotive Cyclopedias, Car Builder’s Cycolpedias, etc. Juyst the ads are worth a look because, in many cases, they have pictures of the plants where these itrems were manufactured. Great source of potential construction projects if you are a modeler.
Another good source of information can be found in the so-called “Transactions” issued by different engineering societies or trade assocaitions. Transactions of the AIME (American Insttute of Mining Engineers) is one that comes to mind here. Let’s also not forget publications by the American Iron and Steel Institute.
If you havn’t seen any of the old ICS books, try and find some of them. Lovely drawings, etc. I have the ones relateng to freight car construction and locomotive boilers. These were designed for apprentices or what we today call “newbies” who were learning job skills.
Here are some more prototype “rules”. Since steam locomotives didn’t have dynamic brakes the train would stop at the top of a hill,brakemen would set the retainers.At the bottom the train would stop again,crews released retainers,the engineer would wait up to 20 minutes for the wheels to cool. I suppose this would d epend on the enginner’s judgement .