Acquired five amazing Locomotive Cyclopedias with a donation to the Izaak Walton Killam Children’s Hospital in Halifax.
Cool!, What years, I see 1980 and 1938 but cant make out the rest
Black on the bottom of the stack is 1938. The big blue one above it is 1941 -- that is the one that Kalmbach sold a reprint of years ago and even those reprints cost big bucks, so an original is truly valuable. The red one above that appears to be 1960. Note that the Car and the Locomotive Cyclopedias had been combined by then. I have a Car Builders Cyc from 1937 that is even thicker than the 1941 Locomotive Cyc, so a combined Cyc back then would have been unwieldy yet note how slender it was by 1960 to combine.
The tan one above that is I think 1974. They must have printed a lot of those because those are perhaps the most common ones I see at swap meets. Top of the pile is 1980.
Congrats, OP, on this excellent acquisition and I bet you're having a ball looking through them. My own preference is for Car Builder's Cyclopedias for practical modeling information but both are useful and fascinating. The ideal is to get a Cyclopedia for the very year you model so you have a sense of a cut off date (actually having the one issued 4 years or whatever after your era is useful just to know what might look correct but in fact is "too new"), and having selected older ones before your era on that basis that 10 year old cars are common, 20 year old cars are not unheard of, and even 35 or 40 year old care not impossible although getting unlikely.
When you get to some of the car builder's cyclopedias from the 1930s you begin to see and recognize nearly the entire early Athearn product line and lettering schemes, including the numbers!
Dave Nelson
Here are the references for each from their front-matter.
1. Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, Tenth Edition - 1938, Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation (New York, 1938).
2. Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, Twelfth Edition - 1944, Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation (New York, 1944).
3. Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, First Edition - 1966, Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation (New York, 1966).
4. Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice, Third (Centennial) Edition, Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation (New York, 1974).
5. The Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practices, Fourth Edition, Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation (New York, 1980).
The 1938 volume includes locomotive shops and engine terminals.
That's cool. I have some of the Newton-Gregg reprints and love to look through them.
Paul
That is a respectable find, indeed! My mother went to a rummage sale back in the early '70s and came home with a "big train book" she bought for me. Paid 25¢! It was a 1940 Car Builder's Cyclopedia
Later I found a '41 Locomotive Cyc. at a used book sale. Paid a whole five bucks for that. IIRC books were a dollar a pound! I like the '41 Locomotive since it has much of the "Superpower" steam as well as great color renderings of the early diesels.
My dad bought a 1971 combined Car & Locomotive Cyc. right from Simmons-Boardman. Thankfully, I still have them all. An excellent reference.
Cheers, Ed
The table at this HP address is an overview of those 42 books I examined. The first of the publication is 1879 and the latest is 1997. The old ones are sold on DVD and some are published on the Internet. There is also a special edition called the Electric Railway Dictrionary 1911. I have obtained those marked with asterisk.
On the other hand, there are 10 books on track maintenance from 1921 to 1986.
BN7150On the other hand, there are 10 books on track maintenance from 1921 to 1986.
I have the Track Cyclopedia from 1978 and the Railway Engineering and Maintenance Cyclopedia (track, but also so much more) from 1939. Both are invaluable references for a modeler who seeks accuracy in the physical plant of the railroad and not just the rolling stock -- or who just enjoys interesting pictures and information about a specialized and highly technical world which is all too often a closed book even to the most avid railfan.