Useful source for turn-of-the-century modeling

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

For those of you who are modeling the 1890-1920 timeframe, I recently found a very useful little book at a used book store - Tratman’s “Railway Track and Track Work,” a guide for engineering staffs. It contained a lot of the current practices, and it was updated several times. I found the 1909 edition, but I found editions from 1936, 1929, and 1901 on Alibris.com. It’s a goldmine of information on period ballasting and signage, and even such tangential issues as section houses, coal chutes, and water facilities, and yard layout. It has great information on such now-discarded practices as earth ballasting - so if you, like me, are interested in just how and way you see the center of a lot of period track covered with lumps of bare dirt, you can find it here.

2

Thanks for the tip. I just ordered both the 1936 and 1940 editions for my pre-WWII layout planning.

Bill

3

Thanks
This will also be useful here at the Nevada State Railroad Museum where we have operational 1875 Virginia & Truckee Railroad 4-4-0 wood burning locomotives and some track to run them on.

4

I found the ballasting information to be the most interesting part of it - in period photos (particularly of Western lines), you invariably see small heaps of earth covering the centers of the ties, giving the track a half-buried look. Yard tracks, by contrast, often look as if the ties are buried altogether, with just the two rails sticking up out of the dirt. I always understood that it was an inferior method - prone to settling, washouts, and other problems - but that it was common because it was cheap and earth was readily available.