The Essential Railroad Reference Library

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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We have discussed a number of books on this forum, most recently the Official Guide of the Railways.

Which reference books do you have in your library? If you had an unlimited budget, what books would you add?

As everyone probably knows by now, I am a big Official Guide fan, with guides from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s available.

Moody’s Transportation Manuals are also handy to have, with 1972, 1980, 1990, and 1998 volumes on my shelf. Also shelved are two Official Railway Equipment Registers, from 1968 and early 90’s.

I also have USRA Preliminary Plan and the USRA Final Plan. Another interesting reference book is The Station Agents Blue Book, which seems to have been published in the 1930’s and covers the duties of an agent, including accounting, tariffs, passenger and freight duties, and other tasks.

What I dont have is a good atlas of railroads, although there are a number of current and past maps in the collection.

What would you consider to be essential for a Railroad Reference Library?

ed

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There are literally zillions of answers, ed. First, consider your interests: what segment of railroading, what era, what geographical location or locations, what specific railroads, just pictures, just technical, just history, corporate history, construction history, just passengers, just freight, just steam, just 19th Century steam, just 21st Century steam, just diesel, just electric, just standard guage, just rapid transit, just transit, just long distance, just short lines, just Class I’s, just Class I’s before 2005 or just after 2005, pictures, just color, just black and white, oh, the divisons and topic could go on forever.

For me, I’m and DL&W fan, so anything about that road is prime. Then I grew up in NJ, so a lot of Jersey stuff enters my library; but it was also the NY Metropolitan area, so NYC railroads and transit get bookshelf space. As does Upstate NY and nearby PA. I also spent two years in New England back int he 60’s and now my son is raising his family in Maine, so there are bound words and pictures from there, too. I also like railraod fiction, so I have almost 500 or so in that catagory,too, old and new.

I alway thought the Jensen’s American Heritage History of American Railroads was pretty good compared to the many. Don Ball did a nifty job of the 50’s in color tomes. Bill Young’s writings and pictures of the East are ever so fascinating and full. You cannot capture the romance of railrailroading without including Beebe and Clegg’s pictures and prose. Not being a westerner I do lack a lot from there. Best thing to do is check out several, not one but several, libraries and see what they have in their collections that tickle your fancy. Check with other railfans with similar and disimilar tastes than yours. Note the bibliographies of books you do see for further titilate and inform yourself. Check bookstores both new and used,

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Setting aside the hard-core engineering and financial treatises and textbooks:

Second **henry6’**s nomination above of Oliver Jensen’s American Heritage history of railroads.

William D. Middleton’s When the Steam Railroads Electrified, if your interest would include any of those, or the technology.

The 1970s Locomotives in Profile series (2 vols.) by Brian Reed from Britain is world-wide in scope, but there are enough American locomotives and general principles illustrated to be worthwhile.

I believe Brian Solomon has done a pair of diesel books - one on GE, the other on EMD - that would be useful.

The most recent printing of Kalmbach’s Diesel Spotters Guide, the Guide to Shortlines and Tourist Railroads, and Guide to North American Railroads.

Johnny Deggesty and I share a liking for A Treasury of Railroad Folklore, ed. by Botkin and Harlow.

There’s also another couple of histories of American Railroads, one by Stewart Holbrook and one by John Stover.

John H. White, Jr., the former curator of transportation at the Smithsonian Museum, has written a couple of books on early american passenger and freight cars, if your interests lie that way.

Benjamin Kline wrote numerous books about logging operations in the eastern U.S., esp. Pennsylvania.

The reprint of John Armstorng’

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Ed, if you’re bemoaning the lack of railroad atlases, you need to get youself a set of the SPV railroad atlases for the United States and Canada. They are no help whatsoever when you’re traveling, but once you get to the region you’re going, you have the information on current and former railroads very handy. Put them together with the appropriate DeLorme atlas, and you have just about everything you need.

My foremost recommendation for a book explaining railroads is still The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does, by the late John H. Armstrong (the same John Armstrong who wrote those signaling articles for Trains). It’s basically a textbook for the what, why, and how of railroads (and yes, it gives a detailed explanation of the use of block and interlocking signals).

Kalmbach used to publish a “Railroad Reference Series” which was, when fully available, an amazing source of information. There was the Train-Watcher’s Guide to North American Railroads, and the Historical Guide to North American Railroads, and books with steam and current diesel locomotive rosters. A guide to North American Railroad Hot Spots is probably the last book in the series, but they really should consider re-issuing all of them. Someone else is doing the Diesel Spotter’s Guides, and continued updating of these is necessary, regardless of how stagnant things have become.

My own collection is a little heavier on Official Railway Equipment Registers than yours, and I have a shelf-ful of Official Guides, including some of their ancient reprints.

Other folks have made some great suggestions, but that might depend on your own interests (Ed, you couldn’t get by without George W. Hilton’s book on the Monon, for example, or perhaps Charles Foss’ book on GTW locomotives, Evening Before the Diesel).

I consider the back issues of my magazines to be valuable additions to my library–sometimes invaluable facts, sometimes interesting backward looks at evolving

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I should add: check out books that are reviewed by Trains, et al, and by society publications. Also look for books written by names you recognize from articles in your favorite magazines.

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Now, Carl, if you are traveling in the civilized manner (by rail), the SPV Atlases are handy–at least I have found them so. [:)] I will copy the appropriate pages before starting a trip, and then can tell what other roads we are near, and can see the detail in many of the cities we pass through. I will be glad when the last two Canadian (Quebec and Saskatchewan-Manitoba) are published, and then I might consider buying the various revised atlases.

Of course, when you are having to look out for the crazy people on the highway, these atlases are no help in your navigation since no streets or highways are shown; some watercourses are shown.

If you are into passenger cars, there are some books that I bought several years ago: Robert J. Wayner’s Car Names Numbers and Consists (covers lightweight cars) and Pullman Panorama (covers Pullman’s all-steel heavyweights); Kratville’s Passenger Car Catalog (also covers Pullman’s all steel heavyweights); David Randall’s From Zephyr to Amtrak (also covers lightweight equipment)

Peter T. Maiken’s Night Trains covers almost all of the sleeper lines that were operated.

As Paul said, A Treasury of Railroad Folklore has much information concerning the operation of railroads and the people who made the railroads run.

Paul, you do not need to put the “ty” on the end of my name; if it is spelled properly, it is “t/y” (the Younger; standing alone, it is pronounced “Younger” ) [:)] When I

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Everyone mentions Droege’s passenger book but don’t forget he also did one on frieght railroads, too. Interesting, quick reading, but not neccessarily complete nor accuarate, were the public relations puff piece histories of the late 40’s and ealry 50’s like Casey’s Lackawana Story and Hungerford’s Men of Erie and NYC Story and anything by S. Kip Farrington.

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Thanks for the suggestions.

One of the challenges in this would be to define “reference library”.

The Official Guides, Moody’s, and Equipment Registers give us a time definate snapshot of information for the specific time involved. One can document the decline of passenger service by comparing OG’s from say the early 50’s to the early 60’s and then to the late 60’s.

Last night I picked up my coverless well worn 1953 OG and took a look at the B&O service to St. Louis. The first thing that jumped out at me was there were 3 WB’s carded and 4 EB’s. How could that be? The trains were paired…EB and WB National LImited, Diplomat, and Metropolitan Special. However, there was an EB unnamed train 30, leaving 2 hours before the EB Metropolitan.

Why were only 3WB’s listed and 4 EB’s? Was there a massive buildup of B&O power and cars in St. Louis that need to be dead headed back? Picking up Harry Stegmaier’s Baltimore and Ohio Passenger Service 1945-1971 v1, The Route of the National Limited, the mystery was solved.

B&O ran a WB train 29, consisting of only front end cars…mail and express to St Louis, with no passenger service. The EB train 30 had a single coach between St. Louis and Cincinnati.

Now…would one consider Stegmaiers’s book a reference book? I wouldnt, but more of a narrative on the service provided. But, it certainly filled in the gap and answered questions.

Stegmaier also discussed in detail the interesting passenger operations to and from Louisville off the mainline at Mt. Vernon.

So, while Stegmaier’s book would not necessarily be classified as a reference book, it certainly filled in the gaps left by the OG.

Regarding railroad atlases, I have never really found the need for purc

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I expect that there was a rider coach for the train crews; I don’t think they would have been really comfortable riding a headend car for 160 or so miles (I think that Washngton, Indiana, was their division point).

Other roads also ran mail trains, and some even listed them in their public timetables. The MILW showed an overnight train to Minneapolis from Chicago, complete with some times at stations–and a warning that it did not carry passengers; the eastbound train did carry passengers. The Great Northern ran a mail train which did carry passengers between St. Paul and Seattle, and, for a time at least, had a sleeper between Wenatchee and Seattle. There was food service east of Spokane–Train Sales Services sold food and beverages, perhaps much like the news butchers of old. In the last two years or so before Amtrak was started up, I ate several meals that were provided that way.

Johnny

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True, Ed, that Official Guides had maps of most of the railroads, but those were rarely geographically accurate, at least not to the point where one could go and say that this bike trail was the former Pennsy, or whatever. It took me quite a while to make sense out of that BRC map in the Guide. I don’t think I ever would have known from the Guide, for example, that CB&Q (and BN) actually shared some of the track on C&NW’s main line in Illinois.

Johnny, I would dearly love to be able to complete my collection–even to have some of the volumes I’d given away during a crazy period in my life. The local hobby shop says they can’t get them any more.

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OG maps were marketing and public relations maps. Paralell and competing railroads were not shown, especially in places where both served the same city or market. Trackage rights were not necessarily shown. Sometimes freight only stations were not shown other times every hiccup on the railroad were indicated. Sometimes the map was aimed at the passenger and othertimes at the would be shipper. Friendly connections and interchange points were shown while non friendly points not. Later straight line maps didn’t show all locations or actual relationships from station to station and point to point nor the twisting 100 mile stretch between dots. The older maps were most interesting and did show a lot more; often you could get a gist of the relationship of location and importance of location in relation to other roads and connections. Each map worth hours of pouring over!