In fairness to Morning Sun, I'd like to point out that the publisher doesn't have the staff to do the kind of fact checking we'd all like. He relies on his authors for that. Some authors are better in that regard than others.
Tom
UP 4-14-2: I only have two Morning Sun books in my collection. Northern Pacific Equipment and Through Passenger Service. They have a wealth of photos and this is the only reason why I purchased them. MS books are great for a ride down the right of way of memories as well as modelers and when you consider the number of photos in a 128 page book are a bargan in their own right. I imigine most railfans and model railroaders alike obtain theirs from the many discount book dealers which makes them the best deal available on the market today.
Indeed, they lack the facts and should never be used as reference when doing any research. Most Baby Boomers remember the Classics Illustrated comic books in the 1950s that cost 15 cents at the corner drugstore and helped many a kid in school (mostly boys probably) write that last minute book report the day before it was due. Sharp eyed teachers could tell when a student hadn't read the book but hey, even getting a D on the paper was still a passing grade, right?
The Morning Sun Books "Santa Fe in Color" series is littered with factual errors.
Where author Lloyd Stagner is "quoting" horsepower and/or tractive effort figures for the major late classes of Santa Fe steam power, the quotes are inaccurate.
He correctly lists S. Kip Farrington's "The Santa Fe's Big Three" as one of his sources in the bibliography. It was an excellent work that included actual Santa Fe test data--and Mr. Farrington was there when the tests were conducted.
Unfortunately, Mr. Stagner seems to often misquote the horsepower figures in his Santa Fe books for Morning Sun. The fact checking was not there, and now, folks are using those publications as being "reliable" sources when in fact they are not.
Respectfully submitted--
John
S.Kip Farrington, Jr. wrote several books about first hand prototype railroading starting with operations during WWII continuing through the 50s. All are great reads!
One of the best railroad fiction books ever written is One Way to Eldorado, a novel of railroading in the high Sierras, by the late Hollister Noble, published by Doubleday in 1954. The story takes place in early December and is current to the time the book was written. Noble uses his own fictional Great Western Ry. that crosses the Sierras south of SP's Donner Pass line.
Well written and based on prototype operations. It can be found on the Abe Books site.
Yes, Morning Sun, TLC, and others rely on their authors to provide accurate information, and the final products reflect that. Errors sometimes get published. However, IMHO Arcadia is the one that seems to exercise the least control and influence, and errors very frequently seem to creep into their publications. When I buy them at all it's usually for the photos, and the photo reproduction isn't often very great. I'm very hesitant to rely on the accuracy of captions and text in an Arcadia book. Their Auto Train book is downright laughable. Wish it weren't so.
Morning Sun's Color Guides to Freight and Passenger Equipment have been of immeasurable help to me. I'm selling a large collection of HO scale rolling stock on ebay. In the description of each car, I like to include a bit of history on the 1:1 scale equipment such as who built the car (where and when), commodities hauled, where it was commonly found, approximate time such cars were retired, etc. When I cross reference items in the Color Guides with other sources, I've found few errors. Although Morning Sun indeed deserve kudos for countless wonderful books, this is, in no small part, due to due dilligence on the part of the authors.
There's a difference between a railfan and a rail historian. One is a hobby. The other is an academic pursuit. Don't let minutiae kill the enjoyment of railfanning. Books for railfans are produced by railfans.
Even noted cyclopedic writers such as Jerry Pinkepank warn us about being too literal in the description of, say, an EMD F7. Grills, fans, and other identifiers were ported from one locomotive to another without care for what it might be called in the end. Railroads themselves are surprisingly lax about such designations. They basically don't give a damn, as long as they know the horsepower and traction of a locomotive and the weight of a car. When I worked on the Frisco, there was a GP35 that had written above the windshield, inside the cab, "GP30." I mentioned it one time, and you'd have thought I just called the Pope a Catholic, or said that a bear does his business in the woods. The response was something like "So?"
That's the way I feel about most corrections, especially in forums, if the focal point is not what was being corrected. For instance, if someone says "Those Geeps were bringing the Super Chief into Albuquerque after the F unit hit a car in Amarillo," and someone says emphatically "that second unit is an SD9, not a Geep!" well, that's a little too finnicky for my blood. If the post had said "this is what a GP9 looks like," and someone else corrected it as an SD9, I'd agree, but at least would hope that they said "indeed, they LOOK like that, but that particular one is an SD9." Conversation should be informed, but doesn't have to be encyclopedic.
Shooshie
Big Jim, once again thanks for the new insight . To Flying Crow, thanks for your opinion also. Iam not a collector of books(railroad).My book bucks go for fact not fiction. I only met one hogger from N&W in Portsmouth bythe name of Collins. Just to stand by one of the "As" or a Y series was a sight not ever forgotten.
Respectfully, switch7frg
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
switch7frgThis book must be a classic,
The only thing that I can think of right now that the Prince book has that others don't is a very well researched list of every N&W locomotive build number, date of build and date of retirement, etc. information. Did you know that over the years the N&W had a locomotive class for every letter in the alphabet?
If you are a book "collector", don't care what is between the covers and just want to spend big bucks to say you have such and such rare book on the shelf, by all means go for it.
.
If you're looking for out-of-print railbooks let me suggest an outfit called "The Outer Station Project, 1335 Railroad Road, Dauberville PA 19533.
Phone 610-780-4640. E-mail OSPpublications@aol.com.
He's also purchased the inventory of the old "Rails-N-Shafts" railbook seller.
I've met the current proprietor at several train meets and gotten a number of books from him. Nice young man worthy of your patronage.
switch7frgThis book must be a classic, because I have looked in all the book stores that are still around( big name stores). They tell me "it is out of print " or " we don't carry railroad books (no demand for them).
Ok...nobody's helping you. Go to ABEBOOKS http://www.abebooks.com/
Search "Prince, Richard E."
Knock yourself out!
Big Jim and Tom, thank you for the reply to my Question.This book must be a classic, because I have looked in all the book stores that are still around( big name stores). They tell me "it is out of print " or " we don't carry railroad books (no demand for them).
Prince wrote several books on various railroads on the Southeast. All of them are highly regarded, and highly collectible.
switch7frgIs the Richard Prince book about the N&Ws Y series accurate?
Is the Richard Prince book about the N&Ws Y series accurate? Beside the very high price I would hope it is very true. It is known that Iam a fan of those great engines , have seen several of them on rt.23 in Ohio heading to Columbus Ohio in my younger years double heading with a long train of coal.
Respectfully, Cannonball
Quoting semper vaporo: "It really is to advance the timing of the valve by combining the angle of the valve link with the angle of the drive wheels."
Always Steam, thanks for that explanation; I had long wondered why it is called "combination lever"--had I not The Locomotive Uo To Date carefully enough?
Johnny
When I find a gross error in a book or magazine I feel that the rest of the publication is so suspect that i tend to totally ignore it.
I used to subscribe to a magazine that covered all things Scientific in America and devoured every article and felt that I knew a lot about many scientific subjects... from nuclear to biology to ... well anything. Then they had an article about a subject that I already knew a lot about, being it was my line of work... "Computers". The errors were so gross I was aghast. For one thing they said that newer computers (this was ages ago) no longer work in Binary but use Octal because it is faster! (Octal is just a way for humans to remember strings of binary digits more easily... "3132351" is easier to convey to another human than "011001011010011101001" [hexadecimal is even easier with "CB4E9"]... inside the computer it is still just 1's and 0's.)
If that is the quality of the information about the other subjects I had read in that magazine, I then must assume I know NOTHING about subjects from nuclear to biology to... well anything, if I read it in that magazine. I dropped the subscription and have not even bought another one from the newstand and I laugh at anyone that expounds on any subject with what they read in that magazine.
I also read lots of books about Steam Locomotives and one (I wish I could remember the title) I threw away after I read an explanation of the purpose of the "combination lever" of Walschaerts valve gear The book said that as the steam pressure of boilers inproved over the years that it became difficult for the valve linkage to move the valve, so that link was added to get additional power to move the valve. WRONG! If you look at the size of that lever you will see that it is much too lightly made to impart much "power" to move the valve, it would bend first! It really is to advance the timing of the valve by combining the angle of the valve link with the angle of the drive wheels. (If only the angle of the valve link were adjusted to advance the timing then that would retard the timing in reverse, by combining the angles of the valve link with that of the drive wheel you get a timing advance in both forward and reverse.)
The point is, if you screw-up the fundamentals, what truth could possibly be in your details? Neither of my examples could be attritubed to "Typos" or slipping a line in interpreting a table or chart, or just confusing a date or name.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Roger
This is perceptive, accurate and well-said. This problem will only get worse the older you get. You will absolutely know what you recently read just 'taint so'.And it won't be limited to railroad subjects. ~ John A. Swearingen
I can't respond specifically to the concerns about Arcadia, except to say that I think the authors submit and the printer prints. Input and corrections from the publisher probably varies a lot from company to company. We took great pains with the recent AC&Y book from Morning Sun. Nevertheless, a few errors crept in. Fortunately, none of them was too serious. The photo on the back cover has a misidentified loco number, which is easily seen; the name of the town of Carey, Ohio is misspelled (Cary) in one place; and A&BB caboose number 100 was retired in 1940, not 1949. Those of us involved in that project were disappointed that we missed those; but we were happy that we got so much right.
I get frustrated with obviously incorrect info, and I get especially frustrated when the info is available and the error is obvious and avoidable. But the experience of working on that book has taught me to be a bit sympathetic to authors who try hard and slip up here and there. The last time I was accused of being perfect, I was told I was a perfect __________.
Wislish wrote:
"I would do this either with parentheses, 2-(C1)+2-(C1)-B, or with apostrophes, 2-C'1+2-C'1-B. I would also at least think about using the little 'o' to show the powered axles are not conjugated - 2-Co'1+2-Co'1-Bo..."
My understanding of the German Wheel Arrangement notation is that the apostrophe indicates that the preceding set of wheels can move relative to the rest:
So a Pacific is 2'C1'
The C&O turbine would be
(2'Co1)' (2'Co1 Bo') since the brackets and apostrophe indicate that the leading "truck" is articulated and the lead truck is in turn articulated (or flexible) relative to its main frame as is the trailing truck... however, the non motored axle in the four axle truck (or frame) is not flexibly mounted relative to the motored axles.
To return to the thread topic a bit more closely, I picked up a book on locomotives of the Great Northern Railway of Ireland.
In the 1930s, a light blue scheme was selected for passenger locomotives, and it was said that the locomotives were known as "Blue Birds" after the speed record cars and boats of Donald Campbell... Of course, in the 1930s it was Donald's father, Sir Malcolm Campbell who was chasing the records (often using Napier Lion w-12 aero engines).
I'm not taking the book back, it is really excellent and includes diesel railcars and the MAK 0-8-0 No 800...
M636C
My understanding of the 'local detail' color in the Beyer Peacock film -- strongly tempered, you understand, by the unique Strine insight of my father's friend "Oz Pete" Dunn, is that the Poms didn't bother to fact-check every jot and tittle of the places in the Colonnaaays where the locomotives happened to be used...
M636CBut to the C&O turbines... Wikipedia gives them as 2-C1+2-C1-B
Which is, of course, more correct than Whyte coding for a locomotive -- steam or otherwise -- equipped with bogie trucks and electric transmission. I would tinker with the syntax very slightly in an attempt to clarify that the "C1" is actually a four-axle rigid underframe with the last axle left unpowered (the three motors are 'in between' the axles in the very substantial cast underframe section and there is noconvenient room for a fourth without making a hysterically overlong locomotive even more so...) I would do this either with parentheses, 2-(C1)+2-(C1)-B, or with apostrophes, 2-C'1+2-C'1-B. I would also at least think about using the little 'o' to show the powered axles are not conjugated - 2-Co'1+2-Co'1-Bo...
I never did understand why two traction motors were on the trailing truck, unless it helped adhesion somehow...
I think they are there to get the maximum number of power-limited traction motors in the layout. You don't want them on the leading bogie, and you dare not have them on the bogie under the firebox, and you have to give up one axle in each of your main underframes ... so why waste that trailing truck? You will see very similar 'motor-number overkill' as the N&W progressively pisses over the PRR V1 turbine design in the late '40s and early '50s, and finally throws the whole thing over in favor of plain old span-bolstered Co truck on the TE1.
Wizlish Just so y'all know, here is my reference for putting the hyphen in 'Beyer-Garratt': By the time you get to the C&O M-1 you will have a headache understanding what is going on without a + in there somewhere (4-8-0+4-8-4), and I have never entirely understood how the PRR could call the V1 a "4-8-4-8" with a straight face (it is a 4-8-0+4-8-0, a full-blown example of a wheel arrangement that cannot be taxonomically described in Whyte coding accurately without special punctuation).
Just so y'all know, here is my reference for putting the hyphen in 'Beyer-Garratt':
By the time you get to the C&O M-1 you will have a headache understanding what is going on without a + in there somewhere (4-8-0+4-8-4), and I have never entirely understood how the PRR could call the V1 a "4-8-4-8" with a straight face (it is a 4-8-0+4-8-0, a full-blown example of a wheel arrangement that cannot be taxonomically described in Whyte coding accurately without special punctuation).
Typical British documentary of the time. I note the use of the music "Coronation Scot" not quite matching the train.
I trust the spelling in that advertisement is correct.
The pronunciation of the town names (apart from Brisbane and Rockhampton) was a bit suspect, and I don't think Rockhampton was ever in the top 100 ports in Queensland. As far as I know the coal was always exported through Gladstone as it is now. Of course much of it is double track electrified at 25kV running 106 tonne wagons.
Although I did work for QR in that area, I never saw a Garratt working.
And I never saw coal shipped in open (gondola) wagons, always hoppers although many were four wheel hoppers.
The red paint used on the Garratts was left over from a cancelled luxury passenger train. Waste not want not.
But to the C&O turbines...
Wikipedia gives them as 2-C1+2-C1-B
I make that as 4-6-2+4-6-2-0-4-0 in Whyte notation
M636C Wizlish "Beyer-Garratt" should never be spelled differently, and of course that goes for 'Garratt' (with the capital letter and the double 't') too. Like "Mallet", "Beyer" and "Garratt" are surnames, Beyer one of the original partners in Beyer, Peacock and Garratt an inspecting engineer employed by the New South Wales government (at Beyer, Peacock among others). It is said that Garratt got the idea for his locomotive watching large naval guns being moved on two four wheel rail wagons. The British used the "+" for articulation continuously, at least post World War II, particularly for Beyer Garratts...
Wizlish "Beyer-Garratt" should never be spelled differently, and of course that goes for 'Garratt' (with the capital letter and the double 't') too.
"Beyer-Garratt" should never be spelled differently, and of course that goes for 'Garratt' (with the capital letter and the double 't') too.
Like "Mallet", "Beyer" and "Garratt" are surnames, Beyer one of the original partners in Beyer, Peacock and Garratt an inspecting engineer employed by the New South Wales government (at Beyer, Peacock among others). It is said that Garratt got the idea for his locomotive watching large naval guns being moved on two four wheel rail wagons.
The British used the "+" for articulation continuously, at least post World War II, particularly for Beyer Garratts...
I think anyone who is interested in these locomotives will enjoy this.
In my opinion, the + symbol ought to be reserved for unusual hinging that is not in a straight line or group. Wiener is using the + sign (see pp 8-9 in Articulated Locomotives) to describe a hinge between engines. So the Triplex (which had Mallet-style hinges fore and aft of the 'rigid' engine is in his system a 2-8+8+8-2, and the Henderson quads and quints would also have been longitudinally hinged (with their relevant boiler sections accommodated above) and would similarly be dashed.
But we now crash into the Scylla and Charybdis of the Whyte coding system: Wiener's expansion cannot distinguish between hinging 'in line' between engines, and pin or pivot articulation of engines (as on a Meyer or Fairlie), although it neatly distinguishes articulateds from duplex-drives (e.g., the wheel arrangement of the ATSF 1398 class or the B&O MK-1 from the PRR Q-2). I am of the opinion that keeping the dashes for Mallets, especially simple articulateds using the Alco method of stabilization, makes better sense (considering how many Americans use that convention!) and retain the + for more special cases. The N&W TE-1 with its span bolsters is not a B-B-B-B and a case could be made for calling it a B-B+B-B if you want to avoid parentheses. By the time you get to the C&O M-1 you will have a headache understanding what is going on without a + in there somewhere (4-8-0+4-8-4), and I have never entirely understood how the PRR could call the V1 a "4-8-4-8" with a straight face (it is a 4-8-0+4-8-0, a full-blown example of a wheel arrangement that cannot be taxonomically described in Whyte coding accurately without special punctuation).
I did note with some amusement that LeMassena, who would as I understand it come in for his share of trouble over introducing this + in the middle of Mallet codes in Trains Magazine, resolutely stuck to hyphens in his Introduction to the Kalmbach reprint of 1970...
I can't comment on Arcadia's "Images of America" railbooks as I've never bothered with them, they cover areas I've already got in other books.
Their "Images of America" books concerning the towns in Northern New Jersey (where I'm from, by the way) are spot-on accurate. I haven't been disappointed in any of them.
Just sayin'.
I have yet to see an "Arcadia" book that wasn't chock full of errors.
Remember that railroad terms and railroaders' terms for locomotives may not be very accurate. Many terms are thrown around without factual basis when it comes to railroaders. I dare say most have little knowledge of the locomotives other than what is required for their actual jobs. They were concerned with tonnage pulled, weight on drivers/wheels, ease of operation and things like that. Most railroaders I know don't really know (or care) GP-9 from GP-30 and refer to them as 800's and 500's. I knew guys that knew Alcos from EMDs simply due to operating differences and an RS-3 was no different from an RS-11, etc.
The use of "malley" was commonly used to denote ANY locomotive with two engines hinged under one boiler by many crews. These folks had more serious stuff to consider than how often the steam was used or which body phase an RS-3 was. All of us armchair experts have to worry about that stuff while they had all the fun running trains!
My negative comment about Morning Sun was aimed at caption inaccuracies. Their books are a treasure and well worth the money for the 128 pages of color photos. Photos don't lie! TLC has some amazing books and I probably have most of them but I think they just have sloppy proof reading and I've found lots of mistakes that could and should have been corrected before publishing. Captions on the wrong picture and stuff like that just aren't acceptable in a quality publication to me. It helps promote inaccurate history.
Roger Huber
Deer Creek Locomotive Works
If you are a stickler for facts, avoid The Great Railroad Revolution by Christian Wolmar. Although this overall gist of this book gives a good overall history of the development of North American railroads, it is rife with factual errors. Mr. Wolmar is British, and although I can accept use of British nomenclature (ties called "sleepers", for example) the text shows the author didn't do his homework.
Wizlish erikem, you're half right: there were 'Consolidation Mallets' a bit before the 'Mogul Mallets', but mot by much, and I don't think the cab-forward idea was 'proved out' for more than a few months at most (both classes in cab-forward configuration are from 1911, I think). I do find it fascinating that SP found it worthwhile to put the four-wheel lead truck and simple expansion on the six-driver locomotives. Yes, they had conventional-cab 2-8-8-2s earlier ... I believe some with those fascinating hinged boilers, too. (Weren't the first ones, MC-1 class, the little engines that ran in Texas?)
erikem, you're half right: there were 'Consolidation Mallets' a bit before the 'Mogul Mallets', but mot by much, and I don't think the cab-forward idea was 'proved out' for more than a few months at most (both classes in cab-forward configuration are from 1911, I think). I do find it fascinating that SP found it worthwhile to put the four-wheel lead truck and simple expansion on the six-driver locomotives. Yes, they had conventional-cab 2-8-8-2s earlier ... I believe some with those fascinating hinged boilers, too. (Weren't the first ones, MC-1 class, the little engines that ran in Texas?)
The MC and MM stand for Mallet Consolidation and Mallet Mogul respectively. (picking nits here...)
The MC's had separable boilers, hinged boilers were used on some AT&SF Mallets. When the MC's were rebuilt into AC's, the separable boilers were replaced with conventional boilers with superheaters. The "simple-ing" took place in the late 20's after the new 4-10-2's were proving mostly superior to the MC's.
- Erik
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