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Albrecht,
Harry P. (1973). World
famous Horseshoe Curve: Altoona, Pennsylvania Railroad.
Clifton Heights, PA: Author.
Albrecht presents a brief history of the curve
covering why it was
needed and how it came to be, along with black-and-white captioned
photographs showing its development and importance. He also
provides a brief history of the city of Altoona and includes maps and
diagrams showing track and labeled building locations of the Altoona
Yards, the Altoona Machine Shops, the Altoona Car Shops, the East
Altoona Engine House, and the Juniata Shops. Also
included are numerous photographs of these locations and a drawing of
the PRR Altoona Shops in 1852. Almost eighty photographs span
from 1854 through the mid 1950s. (65 pages, book)
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- Alexander,
Edwin P. (1947). The
Pennsylvania Railroad: a pictorial history. New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
This is a classic look at the inception and
early growth of the Pennsylvania Railroad with an emphasis on
graphics. Alexander's text presents a summary of the
company's history including chapters on its origin, the building of its
physical plant, its shops and marine operations, the development of its
locomotives, and electrification. His approximately 100 pages
of text only enhance the 300+ black-and-white photographs and
illustrations from the author's own collection which show locomotives,
rolling stock, equipment, bridges, track, stations, broadsides, and
more. (248 pages, book)
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Alexander, Edwin P.
(1984, c1967).The
Pennsylvania
Railroad: A pictorial history.
New York: Bonanza Books.
A reprint of the 1947 edition, above.
- Alexander,
Edwin P. (1971). On
the main line: the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 19th century..
New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.
Alexander refers to this book as a sequel to The
Pennsylvania Railroad: A Pictorial History. In it,
he covers in more detail many of the great system's scenes, structures,
and equipment prior to 1900. In the first 164 pages, the
reader travels across the Main Line including the Philadelphia Division
(Philadelphia to Harrisburg), the Middle Division (Harrisburg to
Altoona), and the Pittsburgh Division (Altoona to
Pittsburgh). He than travels on several other divisions, such
as the New York Division, Philadelphia & Erie Railroad, the
Conemaugh Division, and ends the trip at the Horseshoe Curve.
This book probably has only about 20 pages of text, but the more than
380 black-and-white photographs and illustrations afford many
fascinating hours to the traveler. (310 pages, book)
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- American
Society of Civil Engineers. (1910). New York tunnel extension, The
Pennsylvania Railroad: Description of the work and facilities (Vol. 1).
Transactions of
the American Society of Civil Engineers, LXVIII.
New York: Author.
and American Society of Civil Engineers. (1910). New York
tunnel extension,
The Pennsylvania Railroad: Description of the work and facilities (Vol.
2). Transactions of
the American Society of Civil Engineers, LXIX. New
York: Author.
This two-volume set from ASCE provides detailed
technical information about the PRR’s New York tunnel extension project
including all the Society’s papers descriptive of the
project. Volume one covers, North River Division, East River
Division, Meadows Division and Harrison Transfer Yard, Bergen Hill
Tunnels, North River Tunnels, Terminal Station West, site of the
Terminal Station, cross-town tunnels, and East River Tunnels.
Volume two covers, the contractors’ plan for East River Tunnels, lining
of the four permanent shafts of the East River Division, The Long
Island approaches to the East River Tunnels, The Sunnyside Yard,
certain engineering structures of the New York terminal area, station
construction, road, track, yard equipment, electric traction, and
locomotives, and several other discussion papers. A subject
and author index is provided at the end of volume two.
(Volume one - 478 pages, Volume two – 400+ pages, books, examined at
The Library of Congress)
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Ayers,
George B. (1859). New
descriptive handbook of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and traveler's guide
to the great west.
Pittsburgh: W.S. Haven.
This early guide to the places connected by the
PRR in 1859 begins with Philadelphia and ends with
Pittsburgh. The author attempts to inform the reader where
each place is located (miles to Philadelphia and miles to Pittsburgh)
and provides a brief description of interesting features. The
descriptions range in length form a few lines for smaller locations to
19 pages for Philadelphia, including illustrations of notable buildings
and historic sites. The entry for Pittsburgh consists of 14
pages. Altoona rates 1.5 pages. The places are
listed in geographic order from east to west. Ayers also
provides a brief description (three pages) of the PRR at the beginning
and a few appendices at the end. One appendix contains tables
of railway distances to the western main routes, e.g., to Chicago via
the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago RR, to Cleveland via the
Cleveland & Pittsburgh RR, and others. A description
of the Harrisburg and Lancaster RR branch with place descriptions is
provided in another appendix. Another presents "Hints to
Travelers" which outlines passengers' rights and privileges.
Also included are brief description of prominent cities of the west
including Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit. Period
advertisements are also included. (116 pages, book, examined
at the Library of Congress)
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Baer,
Christopher T. and Dziobko, John. (2006).
The Pennsy in the 1950s: the last great decade. Altoona, PA:
Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.
(Not yet annotated. Click here
for information about the book from WorldCat.)
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Ball, Don, Jr. (1986). The
Pennsylvania Railroad, 1940s - 1950s (2nd ed.).
Chester, VT: Elm Tree Books, Inc.
Ball offers a beautiful look at the Pennsylvania
Railroad during the forties and fifties. He primarily
presents a trackside look at the motive power and rolling stock of the
PRR in action through nearly 300 superb color photographs. In
addition he conveys the flavor of the railroad through a very
interesting narrative containing historic facts, anecdotes, personal
recollections, and interviews with PRR employees. This book
is a must-have view of the Pennsylvania Railroad. (204 pages, book)
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Barriger,
John W., III. (1930). The
Pennsylvania Railroad. New York: Calvin
Bullock.
Barriger presents a description of the
Pennsylvania Railroad concentrating on
the period after it was returned to private management (1920) following
the very difficult war years. Many statistical data are
included covering the years 1922 through 1929. Data are shown
for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (the parent organization which
controlled through stock ownership the other ten operating companies
making up the System), the Pennsylvania Railroad Regional System
(consisting of the parent company, six subsidiary railroads and one
water transportation line), and the total Pennsylvania Railroad System
(including the regional system and additional subsidiaries).
Over fifty black-and-white photographs are included along with
Barriger's informative text and statistical tables. (88
pages, book)
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Barry, Steve &
Malinoski, Robert. (2001). Trackside
Around New York City 1953-1968 With Robert Malinoski.
Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside series
presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who worked in
many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Volume 23 of this series presents the color
photography of Robert Malinoski who lived his early years in Mount
Carmel and Shamokin, PA and moved to New York City in 1938.
Mr. Malinoski has been a published rail photographer for over 50 years,
in addition to serving in the Army Air Corps (receiving the
Distinguished Flying Cross) and working in various capacities including
as a yard brakeman, yard conductor, and yardmaster for the Erie
Railroad, the Erie-Lackawanna, Conrail, and then New Jersey
Transit. Like the other trackside series books, this one
presents many stunning photographs of railroad locomotives and
equipment, and railroad settings, i.e., in this case around New York
City from 1953-1968. Of course many railroads served the area
around New York City, and this book includes images of the Long Island
Rail Road, the New Haven Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey,
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the Reading Lines, the Lehigh
Valley Railroad, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the
Middletown & New Jersey, the Ontario & Western, the
Susquehanna & Western, the New York Central, the Erie (and
Eire-Lackawanna), the Lehigh & New England, and the Lehigh
& Hudson River. Of course the Pennsylvania Railroad's
presence in the New York City area is covered. by
25 photographs (all but one are on pages 60 through 71) of PRR steam,
diesel, and electric locomotives. The book includes brief
biographical information about the photographer and very informative
photograph captions. Malinoski's photographs will engender
many wows from all who appreciate railroad photography. (128
pages, book, obtained from the Smithtown Library, Kings Park, NY)
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Baumgardner,
Mahlon J. & Hoenstone, Floyd G. (1952). The Allegheny Old Portage
Railroad, 1834-1854, building, operation and travel between
Hollidaysburg and Johnstown Pennsylvania.
Ebensburg, PA: the Authors.
Baumgardner was historian of the Cambria County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of
the Sons of the American Revolution and Hoenstine was president of the
Blair County Chapter of the S.A.R. This publication was done
in commemoration of a meeting and banquet of the two chapters at the
Summit Mansion House on June 14, 1952. The book includes a
collection of materials that present information about the engineering
and economic realities faced during the construction and operation of
the Allegheny Old Portage Railroad. The Old Portage
surmounted the Allegheny mountains by use of a series of levels and
inclined planes. It was part of the Public Works canal and
railroad system, which was eventually purchased by the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company in 1857. The Old Portage Railroad began
operations in 1834 and was replaced in 1855 by the New Portage
Railroad, which eliminated the need to use inclined planes.
The book opens with a one-page chronology of the Old Portage beginning
with the appointment of the Board of Canal Commissioners on March 21,
1824 and ending with the closing of the canal between Hollidaysburg and
Williamsburg on April 22, 1872. Some interesting events
included in the chronology include the first track of the Old Portage
put in operation in 1834, the second track put in operation in 1835,
the remains of President Harrison conveyed over the Portage Railroad in
1841, wire rope first used in 1842, Public Works purchased by the PRR
on June 15, 1857, and the New Portage Railroad dismantled by the PRR on
November 1, 1857. The book then presents information about
the Summit Hotel formerly known as the Summit Mansion House.
Built 1832-1834, it was a very busy hotel while the Portage Railroad
was in operation. The book also reprints parts of an account
by Peregrine Prolix, pen name for an English traveler, describing an
1836 trip over the Old Portage Railroad. Also included are
extracts from a report to the Canal Commissioners of Pennsylvania by
Sylvester Welch, the Engineer of the Allegheny Portage. The
most significant portion of the book is a reprint of William Bender
Wilson’s The Evolution, Decadence and Abandonment of the
Allegheny Portage Railroad, which was originally published
in The Pennsylvania Railroad Men’s News in
1897. See also: Allegheny Portage Railroad (1930).
(90 pages, book, obtained from University of Minnesota Duluth Library)
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Bezilla, Michael. (1980). Electric
traction on the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1895-1968.
University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
This case study of PRR electrification was based upon Bezilla's 1978
Ph.D. thesis at Penn State. It presents a synthesis of the
technological, economic, political, and social issues regarding
Pennsy's electrification, which occurred between 1905 and 1938 from New
York to Philadelphia, Washington, and Harrisburg. Bezilla
obtained much of his information from the engineering and managerial
records of the company, and he illuminates the technical challenges and
difficult corporate decision-making that were faced. In his
July 1981 review in American Historical Review,
Henwood said, "This is a fascinating book. The author has
done an excellent job of analyzing and appraising the technological and
managerial elements of this vast undertaking." (233 pages,
bib., book)
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Blardone, Charles & Tilp, Peter. (1988). Pennsylvania Railroad:
passenger car painting and lettering. Upper Darby,
PA: Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.
In the forward of this book, Blardone and Tilp explain, "This is a book
about the paint and lettering schemes applied to the Pennsylvania
Railroad's large roster of steel and stainless-steel cars during the
middle years of the twentieth century." Although this book
provides many professional photographs of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company and the Pullman Company, it is not just another picture
book. It presents the history of the PRR paint schemes for
the modeler, the serious student, or the casual browser.
Relevant facts and figures including information about the style, size,
and location of lettering and paint/color schemes for PRR passenger
cars are presented. The book focuses on passenger cars during
the six decades following the opening of New York's Penn Station in
1910, and it emphasizes 1930-1958 (the "modern era"). 113
photographs are used along with illustrations, company tracings, and
charts. Color samples are also included. (127
pages, book, examined at the Library of Congress)
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Brigham, Albert Perry. (1907). From
trail to railway through the Appalachians. Boston:
Ginn & Company.
In the preface Brigham states that he attempted to promote elementary
geography and history of the eastern United States in this little
book. The travel and westward movement of people over the
Appalachian Mountains is the focus of the work, which blends geography
and history together and reads much like a guide book. Only
one of the fourteen chapters is devoted to the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Other chapters cover the Erie Canal, the New York
Central Railway, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, westward journeys
from Philadelphia, Kentucky by the Cumberland Gap, and others
topics. The thirteen-page chapter on the PRR presents a very
brief history of the Allegheny Portage and the PRR. The
reader is then taken on a journey from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh with
discussions of various locations in between including Lancaster,
Harrisburg and its “splendid new bridge”, the Juniata valley, the Bald
Eagle valley, Altoona and its PRR shops, the “great loop, or bend” near
Altoona, Johnstown and the flood of 1889, Braddock, and
Pittsburg. The PRR’s efforts to enter New York City via
tunnels, then in progress, are also briefly mentioned. A few
small black-and-white photographs are also added including Broad Street
Station in Philadelphia, PRR bridge near Harrisburg, PRR shops at
Altoona, and the Horseshoe Curve. The book contains and index
at the end. (188 pages, book, obtained from University of
Minnesota Libraries)
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Brooks, Terrence. (1964). Pennsylvania
Railroad: the early days. Los Angeles: Trans-Anglo
books.
This 50-page paperback booklet was originally published as volume 1,
number 3 (July 1964) of Railway History Quarterly. In it,
Brooks provides a very informative and interesting brief chronicle of
the PRR's beginnings, including the development and acquisition of its
basic extensions. He begins by outlining the importance of
the building of the PRR to the commercial development of the city of
Philadelphia and the fund raising efforts that were required to build
the railroad over the Allegheny Mountains. Of course the work of John
Edgar Thomson, first as chief engineer and later as president, is
lauded. His knowledge of civil engineering, railroad
operations, finance, and organization was essential to the PRR's early
growth. Brooks points out that there were no "guide books"
for railroad building in the mid-1800s, so the PRR engineers had "to
proceed on a test-and-try basis" that often caused delays and increased
costs. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this chronicle
is its coverage of the political and financial struggles that were
surmounted to build the PRR during the early years. Brooks
advises that the PRR was declared officially completed on November 1,
1855 when it connected Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. He then
briefly discusses the expansion of the PRR through acquisition of other
key rail lines, including the state-owned Philadelphia and Columbia,
the Ohio and Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, and
others. (50 pages, booklet, obtained from Illinois State
Library, Springfield, IL)
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Bryant, Keith L., Jr. (Ed.). (1988). Encyclopedia
of American business history and biography: railroads in the age of
regulation, 1900-1980. New York: Facts On File.
The Encyclopedia of American Business History and
Biography chronicles America's material civilization through its businesses and
its business leadership. It presents a history of the impact of
business on American life. This volume focuses on railroads
from 1900 to 1980, and of course it includes much information about the
Pennsylvania Railroad and its leadership. The following
primary Pennsylvania Railroad entries present much useful information including
references: *Pennsylvania Railroad by Michael Bezilla, pp336-338, *W.W.
Atterbury by Michael Bezilla, pp16-21, *John W. Barriger III by George
W. Hilton, pp27-30, *Martin W. Clement by Michael Bezilla, pp87-91,
*Leonor F. Loree by Herbert H. Harwood, Jr., pp259-267, *James McCrea
by Michael Bezilla, pp288-290, *Samuel Rea by Michael Bezilla,
pp359-363, *W. Thomas Rice by James A. Ward, pp368-370, *Stuart T.
Saunders by Richard Saunders, pp386-391, *James M. Symes by Michael
Bezilla, pp425-429. There are many other entries in the book
that provide information about the Pennsylvania Railroad, which can be
identified using the detailed index at the end of the book.
The following list includes some additional topics from the index that are
relevant to the PRR: *dieselization, *electrification, *Lehigh Valley
takeover, *Long Island Railroad takeover, *Norfolk & Western
divestiture, *Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, *rate wars,
*Southern Railway Security Company. (book, examined at the South Dakota
State University Library, Bookings, SD)
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Burgess, George H., & Kennedy, Miles C. (1976, c1949). Centennial
history of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1846 - 1946.
New York: Arno Press.
This is a reprint of the 1949 edition published by The Pennsylvania Railroad Company (see
PRR Company Publications).
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Caloroso,
Bill. (1993). Pennsylvania Railroad's Elmira Branch. Andover, NJ: Andover
Junction Publications.
Caloroso was born in Elmira, NY, where his family's home was on the
south Side of Elmira about 250 feet from Pennsy's Southport
Yard. He presents a thorough (and sometimes personal) view of
the PRR's Elmira Branch which reached over 144 miles north from
Williamsport, PA, through Elmira, NY, to Lake Canandaigua, with a 34
mile spur to Lake Ontario at Sodus Point, NY. He offers
chapters on the history, motive power, and operations of the branch
which hauled passengers, produce, and some general freight, but was
probably most important for transporting coal for shipment at Sodus
Point. Caloroso also includes chapters covering the towns
along the branch, more than 160 photographs (mostly black-and-white),
and five railroad maps covering the entire branch and details of
individual communities. In addition he provides a few "Pennsy
People" sidebars focusing on employees and their memories of the Elmira
Branch where steam remained the predominant motive power until the
middle 1950s. About 50% of the photographs reproduced in this
book were taken by Lloyd Hall, whose photographs are featured in Trackside
around Sayre-Towanda-Waverly with Lloyd Hall by Jeremy F.
Plant and Bill Caloroso. The Trackside
book presents 21 additional PRR Elmira Branch photographs that do not
appear in this book. (96 pages, book)
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Carleton, Paul. (1977). Under
Pennsy wires. River Vale, NJ: D. Carleton
Railbooks.
Carleton states in his 1977 foreword that the purpose of this book is
to "relive Pennsy's pioneer attempts at electrification, then move on
through the golden years and bask in the glow of the greatest electric
installation of its time and finally brings this coverage down to our
day". He conveys this story of the Pennsy's extraordinary
electrified lines with interesting text and splendid black-and-white
photographs (over 500 of them). He also includes appropriate
previously published material such as Pennsy press releases,
advertisements, articles from the company magazine (The Pennsy),
timetables, and maps. The building of the electrified
physical plant is covered with the help of about 22 pages of material
taken from a 1925 press report and a Westinghouse booklet published in
1935. The author substituted similar photographs in these
portions of the book due to the poor quality of the original
pictures. Carleton provides excellent coverage of the
electric locomotives of the PRR in a 118-page section entitled "The
Motors Which Made It all Work". He reminds the reader that
"technically an electric is not a locomotive because the energy source
is not self-contained". The "motors" are arranged by class in
order of development, and numerous photographs of each class are
included. A 23-page section covers the "electric
motors" during the Penn Central days. The book then discusses
the Pennsy's east end affiliates, its distinguished passenger service,
including its service to commuters, and finishes the story with the
metroliners, Amtrak, and Conrail. (320 pages, book)
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Carleton, Paul. (1989). Pennsy
steam: A to T. Dunnellon, FL: D.Carleton
Railbooks.
This is Carleton's second book on PRR steam locomotives. He
referred to his first, Pennsy, A to T, as a "little book for steam
enthusiasts everywhere". It was a modest 96-page effort that
presented photographs and very brief text covering PRR steam
locomotives grouped by class. Although Carleton uses a very
similar format in Pennsy Steam: A to T it is a much more satisfying
product than the previous work. It presents more substantive
information about the Pennsy's steam locomotives through more
informative text and a large number of better-quality black-and-white
photographs (over 440 of them) than the former
work. The "A to T" in the title is taken from Pennsy's steam
power classification system that classed its locomotives by progressive
letters from A for 0-4-0s through T for 4-4-4-4s. This book
is organized according to this alphabetic sequence and presents
information and photos describing the locomotives of each wheel
arrangement. Also included are a PRR system map, several
Pennsy illustrated advertisements, and a chapter written by Bert
Pennypacker covering the history of the I1 class (Decapod) locomotives
entitled "Dinosaurs of the Alleghenies." (208 pages, book)
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Carleton, Paul. (1991). Pennsy
steam: a second look. Dunnellon, FL: D. Carleton
Railbooks.
Carleton's "second look" at steam motive power development on the
Pennsylvania Railroad is his third book covering PRR steam
locomotives. Second Look is intended to compliment the
previous works, Pennsy, A to T and Pennsy Steam: A to T. It
begins with a discussion of steam locomotive development in the early
1800s and details this development on the Pennsy through the decline of
steam. Included is information about the engineering designs
of the locomotives, the most influential mechanical engineers that
contributed their expertise to the PRR, the numbers of units
constructed and places of construction. The story is told
with the use of approximately 450 black-and-white photographs and
illustrations of locomotives, the presentation of technical data, and a
very effective narrative. The author used written material
form M.W. Clement, former PRR President, other PRR official
publications, as well as material published in newspapers and Baldwin
Locomotives. Also included is a chapter written by C.B.
"Bert" Pennypacker that outlines the PRR's final steam power.
(208 pages, book)
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Carleton, Paul. (1995). A
Pennsy diesel power review. Dunnellon, FL: D.
Carleton Railbooks.
For the first time, Carleton addresses diesel power development on the
Pennsylvania Railroad in book form. He has produced three
previous books about Pennsy steam power and one about Pennsy
electrification. Like the previous Carleton books, this one
presents numerous black-and-white photographs (over 430 of them)
showing working PRR locomotives (diesel in this case). The
author uses the photographs, with descriptive captions, and brief
introductory text at the beginning of each chapter to document the
story of the diesel locomotives that worked for the PRR. The
book begins with a chapter written by Bert Pennypacker that describes
the transformation of the PRR from steam to diesel motive power during
the period from 1945 to 1957. It then provides a feeling for diesel
locomotive operations on the PRR from a railroad fans perspective
including "train watching" photographs at Duncannon, Altoona, and the
Horseshoe Curve, and descriptions of a few railfan
excursions. Pages 69 through 223 finish the story with
chapters that present photographs of Pennsy diesel locomotives produced
by each locomotive works. The American Locomotive Company,
The Baldwin Locomotive Works, The Electro Motive Division of General
Motors, Fairbanks Morse, and Lima Hamilton are covered in these
chapters. (224 pages, book)
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Carleton, Paul, & Carleton, Daphne. (1962). Pennsy, A to T: PRR steam
picture history. Fairview, NJ: P. & D.
Carleton.
The authors state that they were pleased to "produce this little book
for steam enthusiasts everywhere". It presents over 140
black-and-white photographs of PRR steam locomotives. The
photographs are grouped together by categories such as the Atlantics,
including photos of E-1, E-2, E-2c, E-3sd, E-5s, and E-6s locomotives,
or the Consolidations, including photos of H-3, H-6sb, H-8sa, H-9s,
H-10s, and HH-1 locomotives. Other categories include
Switchers, Eight Wheelers, Moguls, Ten Wheelers, Decapod, Texas,
Pacifics, Mikado, Mountain, and Duplex. At the beginning of
each category brief technical data including the wheel arrangements,
weights, boiler pressures, cylinder sizes, and tractive efforts are
presented. In addition a very brief, and somewhat erratic,
narrative covering the development of switchers, freight power, and
passenger power is presented at the beginning of "this little
book". (96 pages, book)
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Chesley, Alan B. (1982). Cabin
cars of the Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads.
Hicksville, NY: N.J. International, Inc.
This book is number 2 in the publisher's Caboose Data Book
series. It begins with a forty-page section that presents
photographs (many in color) and schematic drawings, with measurements,
of PRR wood and steel cabin cars. Very short captions provide the only
textual information. The following cabin car classes are
covered in the PRR section: NC, ND, N5, N5a, N5b, N5c, N6B, N6A, N8,
and N5E. The next seventeen-page section presents similar
information for LIRR cabin cars including classes, N52A, N22A, N22B,
N52B (Ex O&W), and (Ex IC). A five-page section
describing air brake and safety appliances for cabin cars is added at
the end of the book. (64 pages, book)
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Chesley, Alan B. (1984). Pennsylvania
Railroad heavyweight passenger equipment and photo book.
Hicksville, NY: N.J. International, Inc.
Similar to Chesley's Cabin cars of the Pennsylvania and Long Island
Railroads this book presents 80+ photographs (mostly black-and-white)
of PRR equipment with accompanying foldout schematic
illustrations. Chesley's illustrations show measurements and
structural designs of at least two sides, i.e., side and end views, and
many show all four sides. Interior drawings are not provided.
The works of several photographers are included, although most
photographs are by George Votava. Very brief captions are
provided. As the title indicates this book covers passenger
equipment including, baggage cars, reefers, combines, coaches, cafe
coaches, railway post office cars, diners, business cars, parlor
observation cars, track inspection cars, horse express cars, theatrical
scenery express cars, and Brill and Pullman gas electric
cars. A chart listing the number of cars by type in July
1923, December 1930, and January 1940 is provided. At the end
an explanation of the PRR passenger truck classification system is
provided along with a listing of specifications for each passenger
truck classification, e.g., 2C-P3, 3C-P1, etc. (119 pages, book)
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Condit, Carl W. (1980). The
port of New York: a history of the rail and terminal system from the
beginnings to Pennsylvania Station. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Condit believes that understanding movement on (and above and below)
both land and water are critical to understanding the history of a
city. This book focuses on the genesis, growth, operations,
and urban consequences of the New York rail and terminal system with
particular emphasis on the electrified railroad passenger stations,
i.e., Grand Central Station and Pennsylvania Station. His technological
history begins with New York and New Jersey rail lines before 1885 and
progresses through the development and construction of the first Grand
Central Depot, the New Jersey terminals, including the Pennsylvania
terminal at Jersey City, and a background of railroad electrification
in New York. He then discussed in detail (more than 100
pages) the development and construction of Pennsylvania Station and the
electrification of the Pennsylvania and its subsidiaries. See
also: Couper (1912), Middleton (1996), Parissien (1996), Westing
(1978). (431 pages, bib, book, obtained from South Dakota State
University)
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Couper, William. (Ed.). (1912). History
of the engineering construction and equipment of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company's New York terminal and approaches.
New York: Isaac H. Blanchard Company.
Couper edited a very informative book, which contains a description of
Penn Station's architectural and engineering details including the
river tunnels that were an essential component of direct rail entrance
to Manhattan Island. A brief history of this massive
engineering and construction effort is included as a forward.
A section dealing with the dedication of the Cassatt memorial at Penn
Station on August 1, 1910 provides a tribute to the late A.J. Cassatt
whose leadership and hard work as president of the PRR made this
engineering project possible. This section also provides
photographs of, and biographical information about, PRR leadership
including James McCrea, President, Samuel Rea, First Vice President,
Albert John County, Assistant to First Vice President, and Charles
Walker Raymond, Chairman of the Board of Engineers in charge of the
Company's New York tunnel extension. Most chapters in
Couper's book are written by men who played leadership roles in the
engineering and construction project. The Meadows, North
River, and East River divisions are covered along with Manhattan
Transfer, electric traction, and station construction including its
architectural motif. Numerous photographs of construction
scenes and people are included along with 14 pages of 1912 advertising
at the end. See Westing, Fred (1978) for a reprint and
additional information. See also: Condit (1980), Middleton
(1996), Parissien (1996). (131 pages, book)
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Couper, William (Ed.). (1912). A
publication descriptive of the development on the lines of Pennsylvania
Railroad, within one hundred miles of New York City Penna. terminal.
New York: Isaac H. Blanchard Co.
This seems to be a slightly expanded version of Couper's History of the
Engineering Construction and Equipment of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company's New York Terminal and Approaches which was also published by
Blanchard Co. in 1912. In addition to the same information
included in the shorter work, this publication presents a few short
sections covering other locations served by the Pennsylvania or smaller
railroads connecting to the Pennsylvania in the New York City
vicinity. Elizabeth, Colonia, and Metuchen, NJ are included,
as is the Raritan River Railroad. Also much more advertising
is included. (165 pages, book)
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Cudahy, Brian J. (1975). Rails
under the mighty Hudson: the story of the Hudson Tubes, the Pennsy
Tunnels and Manhattan Transfer. Brattleboro, VT:
Stephen Greene Press.
Cudahy produced a remarkable little book that is packed with
substantive information about Pennsy operations in New York
City. Part one covers the construction of the Hudson Tubes,
which were financed and directed by William Gibbs McAdoo, a
Georgia-born lawyer. The first tube under the Hudson to
Hobokan was completed in 1908 and the second tubes linking Jersey City
with Manhattan were completed in 1909. Cudahy’s description
of early tunneling techniques is very informative. Part two
covers the PRR’s New York Tunnel Extension. In 1871 the
Pennsylvania Railroad extended its service across New Jersey to the
banks of the Hudson. It was the import-export freight traffic
that motivated the PRR to enter New York City. However
passenger service quickly became the more glamorous commodity once the
lines were established. PRR president A.J. Cassatt was very
enthusiastic about underwater tunnels and electric locomotive power
when he returned from a visit to the Orleans Railway in Paris in
1901. He appointed Samuel Rea, a Pennsy vice-president, to
head a study team that included George Gibbs, who would later provide
leadership to PRR electrification efforts, and others. The
team’s final proposal included: 1) a five-mile two-track line that would take the
PRR main line across Jersey Meadows; 2) a pair of tunnels beneath Jersey Palisades and
the Hudson River into Manhattan; 3) a stunning passenger terminal in Manhattan at
33rd Street and 7th Avenue (Pennsylvania Station); 4) a four-track subway tunnel cross-town from the
terminal under the East River to Long Island City; 5) construction
of a major storage and repair facility (Sunnyside Yard) in Long Island
City; 6) electrification
of the entire project with 650-volt direct current over-riding third
rail and the design of an electric locomotive (DD-1); 7) construction
of an interchange point between steam and electricity in Jersey Meadows
(Manhattan Transfer). The final price was $116 million when
the project was finished in 1910. The PRR’s East River tubes
were completed before the Hudson tunnels and the Long Island Rail Road
began operations into Manhattan on September 8, 1910. On
November 26, 1910 the main area of Penn Station opened and the first
train to carry passengers west out of the station and under the Hudson
River departed on November 27th. Cudahy provides
very interesting information about Penn Station and Manhattan
Transfer. On March 12, 1913, President Samuel Rea announced
that the PRR’s board of directors had voted to spend $4 million to
electrify suburban service out of Philadelphia using a system of
11,000-volt alternating current distributed from overhead
catenaries. By 1933 the wires stretched all the way to Penn
Station, and on January 16th a box-cab, P-5a locomotive pulled train
number 207 out of Penn Station all the way to Philadelphia with no
engine change. The closing of Manhattan Transfer on June 20,
1937 received more press coverage outside of New York than did the
opening of Penn Station in 1910. Part three of the book
covers the declines of the 1960s and 1970s and the Epilogue presents a
tribute to Penn Station. The book includes many photographs,
track diagrams, and maps. (79 pages, book, obtained from the
State of Alabama Public Library Service)
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Cupper, Dan. (1992). Crossroads
of commerce: the Pennsylvania Railroad calendar art of Grif Teller.
(Ken Murry, photographer). Richmond, VT: Great Eastern Publishing.
Cupper, Murry, and Great Eastern have produced a beautiful book that
merges railroading and art. The book focuses on the life and
work of Grif Teller, the artist who worked for the Osborne Company that
printed the PRR's annual calendars. From 1925 to 1958
twenty-seven of Grif Teller's paintings graced the annual Pennsylvania
Railroad calendars. Cupper skillfully illuminates the PRR's
legend. He then provides intriguing coverage of Teller's life
and development as an artist and presents a brief history of the
Osborne Company and the PRR's calendar program. However the
major attraction and unique aspect of this work is the lavish
full-color presentation of each of the calendar paintings including
those painted by artists other than Teller. Each work is
displayed on a full-right-hand-page with detailed background and
contextual information printed on the opposite (left) page.
The book also presents color reproductions of some of teller's PRR
paintings that were not selected and several of his commissioned
paintings. The Pennsylvania Railroad calendar art was
commercial art intended to glorify the mighty PRR and they certainly
achieved their intended purpose. However Cupper and Murry
remind us that the calendars were more than commercial art, they were
an amalgam of railroading, commerce and artistry. This book
will appeal to anyone interested in any of those three aspects of
life. More than 140 paintings are beautifully reproduced
along with numerous photographs. (184 pages, book)
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Cupper, Dan. (1993). Horseshoe
heritage: The story of a great railroad landmark.
Halifax, PA: Withers Publishing.
This "Official publication of the Horseshoe Curve National Historic
Landmark" is an attractively packaged paperback presenting more than
100 photographs and illustrations (mostly black-and-white) within its
57, 8.5 by 11 inch, pages. Cupper presents a lucid and
concise summary of the development and history of the curve including
the hazards of mountain railroading on Pennsylvania's Allegheny
Mountains. He chronicles the Curves importance and popularity
over the years and commemorates the construction and opening in 1993 of
the Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark, which includes a
visitors' center for exhibits and a park-like setting with an inclined
plane to take visitors to the tracks. (57 pages, book)
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Davis, Milton A. (1977). The
50 best of PRR: book one, a portfolio of the favorite fifty photographs
from the camera and collection of the well-known PRR photo-historian.
Baltimore, MD: Barnard, Roberts & Co.
This is the first in a series of four books each devoted to
Pennsylvania Railroad photographs by a single photographer and/or
photographs from the collection of a single photo-historian.
This book presents 45 black-and-white photographs taken by Milton A.
Davis and seven shots by unknown photographers taken from his
collection. Mr. Davis was born in Baltimore in 1920, the son
of a motorman for the United Railway & Electric Company and
nephew of a PRR employee. Although Mr. Davis was not a
railroad employee, he began photographing locomotives in 1936, and most
of the photographs in this book were captured in the forties.
The photographs are presented in a 6 X 10-inch or 8 X 10-inch format
and all captions are written by Charles Roberts. See also: Herbert
Harwood (1978) and Bob Lorenz (1979). (52 pages, book)
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Davis,
Patricia T. (1978). End
of the line: Alexander J. Cassatt and the Pennsylvania Railroad.
New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, Inc.
Davis' portrait of the seventh president (1899-1906) of the
Pennsylvania Railroad is not a scholarly work. She provides
only a short bibliography, no footnotes, and the book contains several
factual errors. However using an extensive collection of
family letters, the Cassatt presidential letter books, corporate
materials, and the reminiscences of Cassatt family members, Davis has
produced an interesting and valuable sketch of the life and character
of this important figure of railroad management history. She
reveals Cassatt's loyalty to the company and his callous insensitivity
to labor during the 1877 Pittsburgh labor strike and riots while
Cassatt was a third vice president of the PRR. She also
reveals Cassatt's strength and ruthlessness in his struggles with
industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan,
and George Gould to end the practice of railroad rebates, and fight off
competition. His destruction of 1,500 miles of Western Union
telegraph wire and over 60,000 poles in one day serves as testimony of
his ruthlessness. Davis also covers what was perhaps Casatt's
greatest contribution, his initiation of the PRR's movement of its
eastern terminal from the west bank of the Hudson River to the heart of
Manhattan via a tunnel system and the construction of Pennsylvania
Station in mid-town Manhattan. Although not completed until
1910, after Cassatt's death, his contributions were invaluable for this
project. (208 pages, book)
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Davis, Patricia Talbot. (1994). The
railroad general, William Wallace Atterbury.
Atlanta, GA: Metro Printing.
General William Wallace Atterbury was the tenth president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, 1925-1935. Many have said the
Atterbury was perhaps the most able and successful of the PRR's chief
executives. William Wallace Atterbury, Jr. and George R.
Atterbury, the sons of William Wallace Atterbury commissioned Davis, to
write this book about their father. In addition to published
and company records much information from Atterbury's sons including
family records, letters, scrapbooks, and intimate recollections of his
private life were used to enrich this account of Atterbury's
life. Atterbury was born the twelfth child of a Presbyterian
minister in New Albany, IN, on January 31, 1866 and he grew up in
Detroit. Davis provides family Atterbury history back to
Huguenot emigration to New York in 1687. Atterbury graduated
from Yale's Sheffield Scientific School in 1886. His brother
Charles, a railroad attorney, helped him get a position with the PRR in
the Altoona shops where most PRR executives began their
careers. He began the mechanics apprentice course, but
quickly worked his way through numerous promotions. By 1892
he was appointed Master Mechanic of the Pennsylvania and was sent to
Fort Wayne, IN. In 1902 Pennsylvania President, Cassatt,
appointed Atterbury as general manager of Lines East over several more
senior company executives. The youngest general manager the
PRR had ever had moved to Philadelphia. In 1909 he was
appointed as fifth vice president. In 1917, Atterbury was
tapped by General Pershing to manage the portion of the French railway
controlled by the American Expeditionary Force. Atterbury was
given the rank of brigadier general and received many awards including
the Distinguished Serves Medal. After the war Atterbury
resumed his duties as PRR vice president in charge of
operations. On October 1, 1925, Atterbury was elected to
replace Samuel Rea as the Pennsylvania's tenth president.
Perhaps Atterbury's most significant achievement as president was the
electrification of the New York to Washington, D.C. lines.
Atterbury believed in electrification as the answer to dwindling
revenues during the late 1920s. He pushed hard to make
electrification a reality even though it was the largest capital
improvement program ever undertaken to that date by an American
railroad and the nation plunged into severe economic depression in 1929
shortly after the work had begun. This is a very personal
look at a very private and unassuming man whose played a major role in
the industrial growth of this country. Davis includes a short
bibliography. (205 pages, book, examined at the Library of
Congress)
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De Angeli, Marguerite. (1977). Whistle
for the Crossing. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company.
In this children’s novel, Eddie Andrew Moore lived near Philadelphia
with his sister, Lavinia, and their father, Edward Terhorst Moore in a
community named Penn’s Manor on banks of the Delaware River.
The story takes place in 1852 and Eddie’s father was an engineer on the
Camden and Amboy Railroad. However, Mr. Moore was asked by
the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad to operate the first train
run from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and then to remain as an engineer
with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in Pittsburgh. The
story describes Eddie’s exciting ride on that first train trip between
the two cities with his father as the engineer. The story is
typical children’s material, but provides some understanding of what
the trip must have been like, along with some historical and geographic
information. The book explains that previously trains had
been running on the Main Line of the Pennsy only as far as Columbia,
where the Juniata River runs along side. From Columbia
freight was transported on to Pittsburgh by canalboat. The
1852 trip was the first covering the complete distance on “steel rails”
and it took three days and two nights. The locomotive’s name
was F.K. Heisley and the train consisted of one freight car and one
passenger car. Many stops were made along the way to pick up
supplies, i.e., water and wood which had been stashed at appropriate
intervals, and for food and overnight hotel or boardinghouse
accommodations. Locations mentioned during the trip included
Fairmount Park (“the largest park in the world”), Paoli, Downingtown,
Lancaster (Amishmen were abundant), Harrisburg, the Rockville Bridge
(the new one built two years earlier), Altoona (Indians lived near
there and Eddie had a friendly encounter with them while a hotbox was
being attended to), Hollidaysburg, Johnstown, and McKeesport.
In the Allegheny Mountains the story included a stationary engine that
hauled the train up an inline and then eased it down the other
side. Although the book is not intended to provide totally
accurate information about the actual first run, I found it to be
appropriate for children and mildly interesting. (107 pages, fiction
book for children, obtained from Siouxland Libraries, Sioux Falls, SD).
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DeRouin, Edward M. & Speir, George G. (1999). Trackside around
Chicago 1957-1965 with George G. Speir. Scotch Plains, NJ:
Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey
and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside series presents
the amazing work of many railroad photographers who worked in many
different locations from the 1940s through the mid-1970s. This
book is number 13 in the Trackside Series and it features the color
photographs of George G. Speir. DeRouin provides a brief
introduction covering the life and work of the photographer, an
overview of the railroad history of Chicago, and several railroad maps
of the area. Like the other books in this series, the
photographs included in this book present beautiful images of railroad
equipment and settings from bygone days around the designated city,
i.e., in this case Chicago. DeRouin selected many stunning
photographs for this book and added informative captions. Any
railroad enthusiast should enjoy this book. Unfortunately only 5 pages,
and about 14 photos, are devoted to the Pennsylvania Railroad. (128
pages, book)
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Diehl, Lorraine B. (1985). The late, great
Pennsylvania Station. New York: American Heritage
Press (also Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company).
In an interview with Amazon.com Lorraine Diehl advised that she grew up
in the station’s shadow. “When it was destroyed, it took a
part of me with it.” This book conveys Ms. Diehl’s love for
the station that was built to last centuries, but only stood for little
more than 50 years from 1910 until its 1963-64 demolition.
Diehl briefly covers the history of the PRR’s New York City passenger
service and then concentrates on the design and construction of the
tunnels and the station. She describes the impact of PRR
president, Alexander Cassatt, and discusses the work of the
architectural fim of McKim, Mead and White who had previously made its
imprint on New York City with many impressive structures.
Diehl also discusses the important impact the station had on New York
and the US society during its 50+ year history. Her coverage
of the demise of the station is both informative and
touching. Her last paragraph quotes a New York Times
editorial from October 30, 1963, “We will probably be judged not by the
monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.” The
forward by Kent Barwick, President of the Municipal Art Society of New
York, states that the destruction of Pennsylvania Station precipitated
a preservation movement that lead to New York’s landmarks law that
prohibits the destruction of other architectural treasures in the
city. Diehl includes 80 vintage photographs, a brief
bibliography and an index. Also, her Late, Great Pennsylvania
Station web site (http://members.aol.com/pennsy) presents brief
information and several photographs including an exterior view, the
arcade, the main waiting room, the concourse, and
carriageways. The author conducts free tours of the remnants
of Pennsylvania Station on the fourth Monday of each month.
The book was also published by Forbes Custom Publishing in 1985 and
reprinted by Viking Penguin in 1987 and by Four Walls Eight Windows in
1996. (168 pages, book, obtained from the Erie County Public
Library)
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Dietz, Paul C. (2001). Firing on the
Pennsy: a fireman on the Pennsylvania Railroad describes the “Last
Hurrah” of the steam engine 1943-1947. Baltimore,
MD: Gateway Press, Inc.
Shortly after his
87th birthday Mr. Dietz decided to record some
memories of his days firing locomotives for the Pennsylvania
Railroad. The reader is rewarded by a rich description of the
work of a fireman and the technology of the steam locomotive.
What enabled Mr. Dietz to create this remarkable record was the library
of old time books that informed him of the details of each of his PRR
working days more than half a century in the past. Each entry
in the books contained the name of the train, the type and number of
the engine, the name of the engineman, the pick-up point and
destination of the train, the time he went off duty, the number of
miles traveled, the hours he worked and the pay he earned for that tour
of duty. These records helped evoke vivid memories of Mr.
Dietz's experiences as a fireman on the Pennsy during the
1940s. In addition to revealing the sometimes monotonous,
sometimes grueling, often exciting, and sometimes dangerous work of the
fireman, Mr. Dietz also provides much information and insight regarding
the equipment that he worked with, including the Westinghouse air
brake, locomotive boilers, the Johnson bar (reverse lever), stokers,
scooping water, and other information about steam locomotives and the
operation of the PRR. Mr. Dietz hired out in 1943 in Canton,
Ohio and worked mostly out of Crestline, Ohio, which was the terminal
point between the Eastern Division and the Fort Wayne Division of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. In this book he recounts experiences
and information about hostling and firing on pusher services, through
freights, local freights, passenger runs, and in the yard. He
also describes in detail the responsibilities of the fireman, along
with some insight into the responsibilities of the engineman, and other
train crew members. In addition, he recounts detailed
experiences of selected work days or runs and gives the reader a feel
for what the life of a fireman was like. I really enjoyed
this book. I believe it compares favorably with the much
longer and more developed “Set up Running” by John W. Orr. I
highly recommend both the Dietz and Orr titles. (97 pages,
book)
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Dredge, James. (1879). The
Pennsylvania Railroad: its organization, construction, and management.
New York: John Wiley and Sons.
This monumental work presents a unique view of the early Pennsylvania
Railroad. Dredge wrote and compiled it for the Offices of
Engineering in London and states that his objective was to describe the
condition of American railroad practice in its most advanced
form. He characterizes the European opinion of American
railroads to include features such as "flimsiness of construction, and
looseness in working." However he admits that some
American railroads (especially the Pennsylvania) equal or exceed
European standards. This work presents a very detailed
description of the PRR including its history, physical plant
(buildings, road bed, shops, etc.), locomotives, rolling stock, and
business aspects. One hundred seven illustrations and
eighty-two plates containing detailed technical drawings of
locomotives, rolling stock, buildings and equipment are included along
with much tabular data in this large-format (11 x 14.5 inches)
publication. (274 pages, book)
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Durham, Robert K. (1995). The
Pennsylvania Railroad. Auburn, PA: Author.
The cover title on this book describes it fairly well, Pennsylvania
Steam - Locomotives and Trains Photographed in Northern New Jersey -
1931-1938 from the collection of Robert K. Durham. The book
consists of about fifty black-and-white photographs of Pennsy
locomotives, most taken by the author. The photographs are
intended to present a sampling of the most prevalent locomotive types
used by the PRR at Jersey City and Newark during those years.
Very little text is included and only very brief photo captions
indicate the PRR engine number, classification and the date each
photograph was taken. Except for thirteen electric
locomotives, all the photographs picture steam locos. Durham
states that he enlarged the photos to the published 6.5 x 9.5 inch
format from 2.25 x 3.5 inch negatives. Unfortunately several
photographs are not very clear. (80 pages, book)
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Edson,
William D. (1974). Keystone
steam & electric: a record of steam and electric locomotives
built for the Pennsylvania Railroad since 1906. New
York: Wayner Publications.
Edson records the steam and electric locomotives built for the Pennsy
since 1906. The majority of this book consists of a 33-page
all-time numerical list of all PRR steam and electric locomotives which
have borne numbers followed by 81 pages listing the histories of PRR
steam and electric locomotives built since 1906. The
histories are grouped by locomotive class and then listed in numerical
order by original locomotive number. The builder, date of
construction, date the locomotive left service and its fate are shown
for each locomotive. Edson used official PRR locomotive
registers, shop records at Altoona, and construction lists of
locomotive builders to compile this volume. He also includes
brief essays on the history of steam, electric power on the Pennsy, and
an explanation of the PRR numbering and classification
systems. In addition he provides a separate list of all
engines built at the Juniata Works in Altoona since 1906. (137 pages,
bib, book)
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Ewalt, John W. (1992). The
last hurrah of the P.R.R. New York: Vantage Press.
Ewalt presents a very personal look at the Pennsylvania Railroad's
final years through a description of his twenty-seven-year employment
by the PRR. Ewalt began his employment in a Sperry car
checking for defective rails on the Eastern Division between Pittsburgh
and Crestline on August 3, 1936. He resigned on September 30,
1963, as the company's Director of Real Estate due to unpleasant
interactions with David C. Bevan who was Vice President of
Finance. From 1957 through 1963 Ewalt maintains that the PRR
showed a profit mainly because of income from the sale and rental of
railroad properties. During 1960-61 Ewalt was instrumental in
the sale of Pennsylvania Station in New York to make way for the
construction of the new Madison Square Garden, a hotel and a
thirty-four-story office building. Ewalt uses data from PRR
annual reports to supplement his remembrance. (156 pages, book)
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Feibelman,
W.A. (1979). Rails
to Pittsburgh: steam, diesel, and electrics in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
& the east. Seattle: Superior Publishing
Company.
This book
showcases the photography of Walter Feibelman who lived in Pittsburgh
from 1943 to 1969 and worked as a research engineer at Westinghouse
Research Laboratories and as an assistant research professor of physics
at the University of Pittsburgh. Feibelman completed all the
layout and paste-up work, wrote the text and photograph captions, and
did the associated research. None of the photographs had been
published previously. The book focuses on late steam and
early diesel locomotives during the post-World-War-II years.
Approximately 400 black-and-white photographs are contained in the
book. About half of them depict the Pennsy and over half were
taken in the Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania region. The
photos show an unflattering gritty view of working locomotives in the
highly industrialized Pittsburgh area before pollution control, and
long before the decline of heavy industry in the Steel City.
The photograph captions are short and most do not include
dates. Although there is not much textual information in the
book, those interested in the PRR, railroading, or the Pittsburgh area
will find it stimulating. There are many interesting
photographs including a series of thirty photos entitled “Altoona
Interlude” which takes the reader on a 1949 roundtrip from Pittsburgh
to Altoona as seen from the cabs of a Baldwin Sharknose diesel and an
EMD E-7. The trip also includes some shots of locomotives in
Altoona. In addition there are many very interesting shots of
yard action, industrial activity, and bridge action in the Pittsburgh
area. The book also presents photographs of motive power from
other railroads that serviced the Pittsburgh area, including the
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the
Union Railroad. In addition, there are some post-merger shots
of the Penn-Central, a section on the New York Central in the East, a
section on electrics in the New York-Washington-Harrisburg triangle,
some maintenance-of-way equipment photos, a few Amtrak photos and
others. A simplified map of the Pittsburgh area is included
along with an index by subjects and an index by locomotive builder,
locomotive type/classification, and locomotive number. See
also: Kobus and Consoli (1997) and (1998). (192 pages, book,
obtained from James J. Hill Reference Library, St. Paul, MN)
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Fischer, Ian S. (1996). PRR
color guide to freight and passenger equipment, volume 2.
Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books, Inc.
Fischer provides another look at the Pennsy's diverse and multitudinous
fleet of freight and passenger cars. About 320 high-quality
color photographs are presented with informative captions.
Although the PRR was already in a state of decline when most of these
photographs were taken in the 1960s, there was still an impressive
roster of equipment to be photographed. Most of these images
were captured by Paul C. Winters in Columbus, Ohio, on the Southwest
System of Pennsylvania Lines West between Pittsburgh and St.
Louis. The book is organized according to equipment
categories such as, lightweight coaches, lightweight sleeping cars,
heavyweight coaches, Aerotrain, box cars, flat cars, work equipment,
trailers, etc. Like its predecessor (Sweetland and Yanosey,
1992, PRR Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment) Fischer's
book is very useful to railfans, railroad historians, and
modelers. (128 pages, book)
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Fischer, Ian S. (1997). Pennsy
steam years 2. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Like the previous Pennsy Steam Years (Sweetland, 1992) Fischer’s second
installment is a very entertaining collection of color photographs of
PRR steam locomotives. Over 215 color photographs show PRR
(mostly working) steam locomotives during the mid-1950s. The
photographs represent the work of numerous photographers and many of
them are stunning. Like the first volume there are few pages
of text, i.e., only two. However the photograph captions are
very informative, presenting much information about the pictured steam
locomotives, usually including the locomotive number, builder,
construction number, date built, and date and method of final
disposition. In addition, information about the use of the
locomotives and design modifications that were implemented on them, and
the date of the photographs are often printed. This book
samples the Pennsy’s steam fleet near the end of its life.
“In November 1957 the PRR last used steam engines in its own
service. One hundred and thirty-five steam engines were
retained for possible emergency use, but they were never steamed
up.” Fischer states that the historical data about the
pictured locomotives were taken from Pennsylvania Railroad All-Time
Steam Locomotive Roster published in 1994 by William D. Edson (see also
Edson, 1974). The following locomotive classes are pictured:
A5s, B6sb, D16sb, E5s, E6s, H3, H8sb, H9s, H10s, I1sa, J1, J1a, K4s,
K4sa, L1s, M1, M1a, M1b, N2s, Q2, and T1. The photographs are
arranged by PRR branch or division. The following divisions
are included: New York, Philadelphia Terminal, Atlantic, Maryland,
Wilkes-Barre, Williamsport, Middle, Pittsburgh, Conemaugh, Chicago
Terminal, Panhandle, Columbus, Toledo, Logansport, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, and St. Louis. In addition there are sections
on the New York & Long Branch and the Pennsylvania-Reading
Seashore Lines. Numerous full-color illustrations taken from
PRR advertisements, timetables, and other promotional materials are
interspersed among the photographs. (128 pages, book,
obtained from St. Louis County Library)
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Frary, Dave. (1996). The
Pennsy middle division in HO scale. Waukesha, WI:
Kalmbach Publishing Co.
This book was assembled from the author’s contributions to Model
Railroader Magazine. It describes the design and construction
of an 11 X 16-foot HO scale layout depicting the PRR in September 1950
somewhere between Harrisburg and Altoona. Many color
photographs and diagrams are included. (64 pages, book,
examined at that Library of Congress)
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Frey, Robert L. (Ed.).
(1988). Encyclopedia of
American business history and biography: railroads in the nineteenth
century. New York: Facts On File.
The Encyclopedia of American Business
History and Biography chronicles America's material
civilization through its businesses and its business
leadership. It presents a history of the impact of business
on American life. This volume focuses on railroads in the
nineteenth century, and of course it includes much information about
the Pennsylvania Railroad and its leadership. The following primary
Pennsylvania Railroad entries present much useful information including
references: Pennsylvania Railroad by James A. Ward, pp313-315;
Alexander Johnston Cassatt by Michael Bezilla, pp36-41; Herman Haupt by
James A. Ward, pp165-168; John Edgar Thomson by James A. Ward,
pp384-390; Thomas A. Scott by James A. Ward, pp358-362; George B.
Roberts by Michael Bezilla, pp347-349. There are many other entries in
the book that provide
information about the Pennsylvania Railroad, which can be identified
using the detailed index at the end of the book. The
following list includes some additional topics from the index that are
relevant to the PRR: air brakes; Atlantic & Richmond Air Line;
charter information; Civil War role; Harriman's association; Hudson
River tunnels; labor strife; Manhattan terminus; Midwestern line
leasing; New York Central competition; Pennsylvania Railroad Lines
East; Pennsylvania Station (NYC); Philadelphia & Reading
competition; Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore acquisition;
Richmond & Danville holdings; rate wars; route expansion;
Standard Oil rebate demands; tonnage tax issue; transcontinental
expansion; trunk line pool; Union Pacific association; Woodruff
sleeping car contract.
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Gladulich,
Richard M. (1986). By
rail to the boardwalk. Glendale, CA: Trans-Anglo
Books.
Gladulich presents a well-researched very interesting account of the
development and operation of rail lines in southern New
Jersey. Atlantic City and other south Jersey coastal towns
have served as a major summer playground for residents of Pennsylvania,
New York, New Jersey, and surrounding areas for decades. The
competition to deliver fun-seekers to the shore and back was fierce,
and the PRR with its subsidiary, the West Jersey & Seashore,
and its rival the Reading with its affiliate, Atlantic City Railroad,
were the two major contenders. The book begins during the
second half of the nineteenth century when much of New Jersey was a
sparsely populated wilderness. As industrialization changed
the character of cities such as New York and Philadelphia many
individuals sought the tranquility of the south Jersey coast.
Dr. Jonathan Pitney, a physician, relocated to the tiny coastal hamlet
of Absecon in 1820 where he later decided to build a healthful vacation
refuge for city dwellers. In order to surmount the complete
lack of good transportation to his resort he began campaigning for
construction of a rail line to the area, which eventually resulted in
the formation of the Camden & Atlantic Railroad. The
Camden & Atlantic was purchased by the PRR in 1883, and by the
summer of 1885 the profitable Atlantic City passenger business was
largely divided between the PRR and the Reading. Gladulich
covers the financial and political struggles of the PRR and the Reading
as they sparred for advantage in the south Jersey passenger business
during the growth years, 1880s and 1890s, and the expansion years
during the early 1900s. He also covers the increasing labor
difficulties that took place during the early 1900s and the
federalization of railroads that occurred in 1917 due to the overflow
of war materials that needed to be transported to eastern
ports. The severe postwar recession and increased
operating costs due to the USRA-imposed work rule changes resulted in
significant financial problems for railroads during 1920. The
1920s also brought significant competition from private automobiles and
buses. Both railroads attempted to meet these challenges by
upgrading facilities, equipment, and schedules. On June 25,
1933 the long-sought merger of the PRR and Reading in southern New
Jersey became a reality. Thus the Pennsylvania-Reading
Seashore Lines came into existence. The end of World War II
brought more problems to the PRSL when the end of gasoline rationing
allowed motorists to take advantage of the state’s well-developed
highway system. New passenger initiatives, the sale of
surplus property, and more freight did little to help the
PRSL. Atlantic City and the other south New Jersey shore
attractions lost their luster for tourists during the 1960s and
1970s. Finally the bankruptcies of co-parents Penn Central in
June 1970 and Reading in November 1971 was devastating to the
PRSL. In addition to in-depth historical information,
Gladulich provides many black-and-white photographs (approximately 500)
and many reproductions of railroad promotional materials. In
addition, appendices provide several railroad maps of Atlantic City, a
bibliography, and locomotive rosters for the Philadelphia &
Atlantic City RR, the Williamstown & Delaware River RR, the
Camden Gloucester & Mt. Ephraim RR, the Philadelphia &
Seashore RR, the South Jersey RR, the Atlantic City RR, the Camden
& Atlantic RR, the West Jersey RR, the West Jersey &
Seashore RR, and the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. An
index is provided at the end of the book. See also: Kramer
(1980). (331 pages, book, obtained from the St. Louis
Mercantile Library and the University of Missouri – St. Louis)
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Gunnarsson, Robert L. (1991). The
story of the Northern Central Railway: from Baltimore to Lake Ontario.
Sykesville, MD: Greenberg Publishing Company.
Gunnarsson provides a fairly detailed look at the history of the
pioneering Northern Central Railway with roots back to 1828 as the
Baltimore & Susquehanna Railroad. The Northern
Central was Baltimore-based and created to serve that city along with
the B&O. It eventually carried coal and, of course,
some other commodities and goods between Baltimore MD, Harrisburg PA,
Sunbury PA, Williamsport, Elmira NY, and Sodus Point NY on Lake
Ontario. The NC’s connection to the PRR at Harrisburg enabled
it to compete with the B&O in the western markets.
This connection also enabled the PRR and the NC to deliver
Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal to Baltimore more cheaply than the
B&O could deliver Cumberland-area bituminous
coal. In 1861 J. Edgar Thomson and the PRR became a
major stockholder of the NC by purchasing over 43,000 shares that had
been owned by John W. Garrett, president of the B&O.
The Pennsylvania Railroad purchased another 2,500 shares of Northern
Central stock in 1863 increasing their ownership to 33.79 percent of
the company. The PRR became the largest single stockholder
and therefore was in a position to exercise working control over the
company. The book discusses the acquisition of numerous other
rail lines including the Elmira & Williamsport Railroad, the
Chemung Railroad and the Canandaigua Line, the Baltimore &
Potomac Railroad, and others. In the 1870 NC stockholders
pressured the company to lease the railroad to the
Pennsylvania. In 1874 the President of the NC and the entire
Board of Directors resigned, and the stockholders’ lease committee
approached Tom Scott, the Pennsylvania’s new president, about a PRR
lease of the Northern Central. The Pennsylvania’s financial
condition at the time could not support the lease, and it was decided
that the Northern Central would continue managing its own operations as
a separate corporate entity, but the Pennsylvania’s president would
also serve as the Northern Centrals’ president. This
relationship continued until July 29, 1914 when the PRR, under
president Samuel Rea, executed a 999-year lease of the Northern
Central. The last chapter of the book presents a chronicle of
the major events that affected the former NC system after it became an
integral part of the PRR system. The book includes
approximately 115 black-and-white photographs, numerous maps and
illustrations, locomotive rosters from the 1858 and 1873 Northern
Central Railway annual reports, a list of bridges on the NC as of
December 1861, a selected bibliography, and an index. (189
pages, book, obtained from the State of Alabama Public Library Service,
Montgomery, AL)
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Hahn,
John D., Jr. (1995). Pennsylvania
Railroad diesel locomotive pictorial, volume 1 - ALCo RS series.
Halifax, PA: Withers Publishing.
This book is volume one in a series planned to document the various
types of diesel-electric locomotives operated by the PRR. The book
begins with a brief essay written by Paul Withers and Dan Cupper
outlining the PRR's relationship with ALCo from the early 1900s, when
the Pennsy's steam-locomotive purchases from ALCo were minimal, to 1968
when the Pennsy purchased the last of its 495 ALCo diesels. As the
title indicates, this volume covers the Pennsy's ALCo RS series diesel
locomotives. It presents rosters listing the road number, PRR class,
shipping date, builder's number, order number, options, 8/1/57
assignment, 9/1/60 assignment, 2nd road number, date renovated, new
class designation, and notes on each ALCo diesel locomotive owned by
the PRR. Twenty-seven RS-1, six RS-2, one-hundred-fifteen
RS-3, thirty-eight RS-11, six RSD-5, five RSD-7, twenty-five RSD-12,
and six RSD-15 locomotives are listed in the rosters. Specifications
are presented for each locomotive type and brief text outlines the
Pennsy's ALCo purchases of each locomotive model as well as its
purchases from other locomotive builders. Hahn states that the roster
and specification information presented in this book was taken from
official PRR and ALCo documents. A selection of captioned
black-and-white photographs (approximately 120 in all) is included for
each locomotive type. An index of photographs by locomotive
road numbers is included at the end of this paperback. (56 pages, book)
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Harwood, Herbert H., Jr. (1978). The
50 best of PRR: book three, a portfolio of the favorite fifty
photographs from the fabulous collection and lens of the famous
photographer, historian, author and editor.
Baltimore, MD: Barnard, Roberts & Co.
Due to his interest in railroad history, Harwood has amassed a large
collection of negatives from other photographers in addition to his own
work. This volume presents 51 of his favorite black-and-white
photographs of the Pennsy, including some of his own work and the work
of many other photographers from his collection. The
photographs are presented in an eight-by-ten-inch format. See
also: Davis (1977) and Lorenz (1979). (51 pages, book)
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Haupt, Herman. (1853). General
theory of bridge construction: containing demonstrations of the
principles of the art and their application to practice.
New York: D. Appleton & Company.
Haupt’s engineering treatise on the construction of bridges was
published during the year he became chief engineer of the PRR, although
he began examining existing structures and experimenting with models
and methods in 1840 when he was a civil engineer for the State of
Pennsylvania. In the preface to part one of the book, Haupt
advised that he had been unable to find any published works that
expounded on the means of calculating the strains upon timbers of
bridge trusses or methods of determining the sizes and designs of
framed trusses. Therefore, Haupt devised most of the
principles and methods himself. Although the book focuses on
general principles related to bridge construction, many details are
presented including numerous formula, drawings and diagrams.
Part two of the book was written a “considerable time” after part one,
and it covers many improvements that had been introduced.
Haupt used detailed descriptions of several Pennsylvania Railroad
bridges and a few bridges of other roads to inform the reader of the
then current state of bridge construction science. He also
furnished cost estimates based upon the prices that the PRR
experienced. Some of the bridges described in part two
include, Pennsylvania Railroad Viaduct, Cove-Run Viaduct, Little
Juniata Bridge, Sherman’s Creek Bridge, Cumberland Valley Railroad
Bridge, Trenton Bridge, Bridge Across the Susquehanna, and
others. This book is widely available in libraries on
microfiche as part of the Library of American Civilization, produced by
Library Resources, Inc in 1970. See also: Haupt
(1981). (268 pages, book, obtained from Northern State
University Library)
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Haupt, Herman. (1901). Reminiscences
of General Herman Haupt; giving hitherto unpublished official orders,
personal narratives of important military operations, and interviews
with President Lincoln, Secretary Stanton, General-In-Chief Halleck,
and with Generals McDowell, McClellan, Meade, Hancock, Burnside, and
others in command of the armies in the field, and his impression of
these men. Milwaukee: Wright & Joys.
This is a limited autograph edition. See the entry for the reprint
edition below for a description.)
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Haupt, Herman. (1981). Reminiscences
of General Herman Haupt. NY: Arno Press.
This Arno Press edition is a reprint of the 1901 limited autograph
edition published by Wright & Joys Co. The 1981
edition was reprinted from an original copy held by the University of
Michigan Library. The original title page lists Herman
Haupt’s credentials as follows: Director , Chief Engineer and General
Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Contractor and Chief
Engineer for the Hoosac Tunnel, Chief of the Bureau of United States
Military Railroads in the Civil War, Chief Engineer of the
Tidewater Pipeline, General Manager of the Richmond & Danville
and Northern Pacific Railroads, President of American Air Power
Company, etc., etc. It also states that the book gives
“Hitherto Unpublished Official Orders, Personal Narratives of Important
Military Operations, and Interviews with President Lincoln, Secretary
Stanton, General-In-Chief Halleck, … and others in Command of the
Armies in the Field, and His Impressions of these Men.” As
this description emphasizes, the book presents very interesting
information about Haupt’s Civil War experiences. However, the
book also contains “A Personal Sketch of General Herman Haupt” written
by Frank Abial Flower, which presents an overview of the life of this
remarkable man who played an important role in the early development of
the Pennsylvania Railroad. Haupt (1817-1905) was a civil
engineer who became an expert in bridge construction and a respected
railroad manager. In 1847 he was appointed assistant engineer
for the Pennsylvania Railroad. John Edgar Thomson was so
impressed by his knowledge of bridge construction and his work on the
relocation of the Juniata Division line that he appointed Haupt as his
assistant and sent Haupt to examine the financial accounts,
organization, machinery, and operating methods of the principal
railroads in New England. Haupt’s resulting plan of
organization and management for the PRR was adopted without change and
he was appointed Superintendent of Transportation in 1849, General
Superintendent in 1850, and chief engineer from 1853 to 1855.
One of Haupt’s most notable PRR achievements was to convince the Board
of Directors to develop local business, especially in coal, lumber,
iron, and agricultural products by reducing rates during periods of
reduced freight hauling. He also worked in opposition to the
state’s policy of taxing railroad traffic to sustain public
canals. In addition, he worked to unify and classify freight
rates with the managers of other railroads. See also: Haupt
(1853). (331 pages, book, obtained from the University of
Minnesota Libraries)
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Hill, Howard G. (Colonel). (1972). Riding the
Limiteds' Locomotives. Seattle: Superior Publishing Company.
This is an interesting and enjoyable book from a man who spent countless
hours in the cabs of steam locomotives. Although he was not an engineman, he
worked as a troubleshooter and lubrication expert on steam engines all over
the world. This book focuses on two 1931 trips from New York to Chicago in the locomotive cabs of the
Broadway Limited (Pennsylvania Railroad) and the Twentieth Century Limited (New
York Central Railroad). He made the 20-hour, 908-mile
Broadway Limited trip in the cabs of five K4s Pacific 4-6-2 locomotives (3:00 pm
EST, February 5th - 10:00 am CST, February 6th). He made the 20-hour Twentieth
Century Limited trip in the cabs of Class J-1 Hudson, 4-6-4 locomotives (2:45 pm
EST, February 17th - 9:32 am CST, February 18th). Hill provides a fairly
detailed description of his experiences in the engine cabs during each trip, and
he also briefly compares the performance of the two locomotive types. He provides
mileage and elevation charts for these journeys. Tabular logs of locomotive
performance for these two trip are are included at the end of the book. In addition
to these interesting journeys, Hill also provides a few pages about other recorded
trips on locomotives and chapters on the development of steam passenger motive power
on the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. The book also
includes a paper, "The Influence of the Locomotive Upon the Unity of Our Country"
by Clement R. Brown. Approximately 100 B&W photographs, mostly of steam
locomotives, are included and much additional data are provided about Pacific type and Class J Hudson
type locomotives in the appendix pages. (175 pages, book, obtained for the South
Dakota State University Library)
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Hirsimaki, Eric. (1997). Black
gold – black diamonds: the Pennsylvania Railroad and dieselization,
volume 1. Olmsted, OH: Mileposts Publishing.
Hirsimaki’s excellent book about the transition of the Pennsylvania
Railroad from steam power to diesel power reveals the use of
significant source materials including PRR and Electro-Motive Division
of General Motors (EMD) records. The book begins in 1915 and
discusses steam, electric, and turbine locomotive development in order
to provide a context for the dieselization process. The
Pennsy was committed to steam power, not only because of its huge steam
locomotive fleet, but also because it was loyal to the coal industry,
which generated a large portion of the company’s revenues. In
addition, the PRR was promoting electrification in the 1930s when EMD
was promoting dieselization as a major locomotive builder. In
the foreward, Hirsimaki states the book focuses on the story of the
attitudes and actions of the PRR and EMD during the ten-year period
beginning in the late 1930s. Chapter one, A Standard
Tradition, begins with the control of railroads by the U.S. Railroad
Administration from 1917 through April 1920 when locomotives were
rationed. The Pennsy’s need for many more powerful
locomotives to handle heavy ore and coal trains after WW1 is
discussed. Its steam locomotive roster had shrunk to 7,366 of
which 3,500 were considered inferior at the time. The chapter
focuses on the company’s development and acquisition of steam
locomotives through 1929. Between 1925 and 1930 steam
locomotive development made great progress. Although the
Pennsy adopted some new ideas, it ignored much of that progress and
continued to refine existing technology. Chapter two,
Depression Doings, discusses the storage of thousands of PRR steam
locomotives because of traffic declines during the depression and the
electrification of the New York – Washington main line. The
company’s roster shrunk to 4,779 steam locomotives, and only 2,931 were
in service. The electrification project and the development
of the P5, GG1, and other locomotives are discussed. Also the
emerging importance of the Electro-Motive Company, Electro-Motive
Division, after it was acquired by General Motors and the development
of the diesel-electric locomotive are discussed. The Pennsy
continued to build new steam locomotives such as the S1, and it
experimented with the ill-fated steam-turbine-electric
locomotive. It’s continued resistance to diesel-electrics is
partially attributed to a shortage of cash due to electrification and a
surplus of steam locomotives in storage. Chapter three,
Something Borrowed, Something New, reports that the Pennsy ordered two
2,000 hp. E6A passenger units from EMC, but the War Production Board
refused to authorize their construction in 1942. Although the
PRR ordered nine Baldwin diesel-electric 660 hp. yard switchers and a
600 hp. SW1 from EMD in 1942, the company was still emphasizing
coal-burning locomotives. In May 1942 Baldwin’s T1 and
Altoona Works’ Q1 locomotives entered service. Neither of
these was able to meet the company’s needs and other non-diesel
alternatives were pursued including pulverized coal-fired steam turbine
electric locomotives. Finally, in March 1944, the PRR
realized that its steam locomotive development program was not
adequate, and President Clement negotiated an order for two E7 cab
units from EMD. Chapter four, Changing Horses, covers the
conclusion of PRR steam development, and the book ends in 1947 at the
beginning of the PRR’s diesel acquisitions. This book is very
informative and interesting. It includes more then 200
black-and-white photographs (many previously unpublished), and many
charts, graphics, and tables. I concur with Robert McGonigal’s
observation in a July 1998 review in Trains Magazine that the book
contains numerous typographical errors. However the content
is well worth overlooking those errors. (176 pages, book)
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Howell, Cecil G. (1995). The
building of the Pan Handle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Unknown: Author.
In the introduction to this book Cecil Howell states that he retired in
1991 with forty-four years of service on the Pan Handle
Division. His grandfather, born in 1858, worked on the Pan
Handle Railroad and retired with fifty-eight years of
service. His father, born in 1890, became a telegraph
operator at the age of eighteen and later retired with fifty years of
service. Mr. Howell’s self-published tribute to the Pan
Handle Division continues his family’s 150-year relationship to the
railroad. The book provides a brief outline of the history of
each of the railroads that were part of the Pan Handle
Division. In addition, much miscellaneous information is
included, such as time schedules, photographs and articles taken from
newspapers, photographs from other sources including post cards and
private collections, Pennsylvania Railroad employee passes, baggage
permits, employee recognition cards and certificates, and
tickets. Also included are pay stub messages, short pieces
submitted by other individuals, a list of Pan Handle Division joint
facilities, excerpts of the Rules of the Pennsylvania Lines West of
Pittsburgh (1901), and more. The book presents an interesting
though disorganized, undocumented, and unappealing collection of
information about the Pan Handle Division. The photographs
and other illustrations and inserts are extremely poor in quality in
the photocopied, spiral-bound, copy that I examined. However
those who have enough interest in the Pan Handle Division to carefully
read Howell’s work should be able to find something of
interest. See also: Koehler & Gayvert
(1983). (207 pages, book, obtained from Miami University
Libraries)
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Jacobs,
Timothy. (1988). The
history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Greenwich,
CT: Bonanza Books.
Jacobs is widely published as a poet. However he was born in
Duboistown, PA, and his grandfather worked as a brakeman and then as an
electrician for the PRR for over 40 years. Therefore Jacobs
has a long-standing interest in the Pennsy. This book
presents a brief history of the mighty PRR. It's an
attractively done work, illustrated with numerous photographs and a few
drawings and maps. The text is well written and presents the
highlights of the Pennsy's 121-year lifespan. (128 pages,
book)
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Jacobs, Timothy. (1994, c1988). The history of
the Pennsylvania Railroad. NY: Smithmark.
(This is a 1994 reprint of the 1988 Bananza Books publication.)
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Johnson, Willis Fletcher. (1889). History
of the Johnstown flood: including all the fearful record; the breaking
of the South Fork Dam; the sweeping out of the Conemaugh Valley; the
overthrow of Johnstown; the massing of the wreck at the Railroad
bridge; escapes, rescues, searches for survivors and the dead; relief
organizations, stupendous charities, etc., etc.: with full accounts
also of the destruction of the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and the
Bald Eagle Creek. Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing
Co.
This classic book on the Johnstown flood is an incredible
read. Although the main subject is not the Pennsylvania
Railroad, the railroad played an important role in the Johnstown area
and it suffered great losses, of equipment, property, and lives during
the tragic flood on May 31, 1889. More than 2,200 people were
killed in Johnstown by the flood. Johnson’s book describes
the events of the day and the resulting devastation of the Conemaugh
River valley after the South Fork Dam burst and the waters of the
Conemaugh Lake Reservoir were unleashed into the narrow
valley. Johnstown was a very industrialized area and one of
the busiest railroad freight towns in the state. The
Pennsylvania Railroad tracks paralleled the Conemaugh River and
Johnstown was one of the main freight stations on the line.
In addition the PRR had recently built a large brick station in
Johnstown and employed a few hundred men in repair shops
there. The PRR had previously owned the lake and dam, and in
1881 a PRR engineer had pronounced the structure “perfectly
safe.” The people of Johnstown were warned by South Fork
freight agent Dechert “…for God’s sake to take to the hills.”
However little attention was paid to the warning until it was too
late. Many eyewitness accounts are included in the book,
which adds to its emotional charge. In one account, William
Henry Smith, a passenger on a PRR train that was in Johnstown when the
30-foot wall of water struck, said, “No words can adequately describe
the terror that filled every breast, or the awful power manifested by
the flood. … There was an ominous crash, and the round-house and
locomotives disappeared. … A hundred houses were swept away
in minutes. The locomotive of one of the trains was struck by
a house and demolished. … The rear car of the mail train swung around …
and turned over on its side. Three men were observed standing
upon it as it floated. … As it would roll the men would shift
their position. The situation was desperate, and they were
given up as lost.” Another passenger on a train in Johnstown
told Pemberton Smith, a PRR civil engineer, “I put down my book and
stepped out quickly to the rear platform, and was horrified at the
sight that met my gaze up the valley. … There was a great
wall of water roaring and grinding swiftly along, so thickly studded
with the trees from along the mountain sides that it looked like a
gigantic avalanche of trees. … But in that instant I saw an
engine lifted bodily off the track and thrown over backward into the
whirlpool, where it disappeared …” H.M. Bennett and
S.W. Keltz, engineer and conductor, tell an exciting story of their
escape on a locomotive ahead of the advancing flood before they jumped
and ran for their lives up a hillside. Johnson also covers
the aftermath of the flood and the relief and cleanup efforts that were
undertaken. Of course the Pennsylvania Railroad was very
active in those community efforts as well as recovering and replacing
its own physical plant and healing employee morale. Within
days the PRR Board of Directors had approved a donation of $25,000 for
the assistance of flood survivors, and individual PRR employees
contributed additional funds. At the end of the book Johnson
also includes three chapters about devastation from the same storms in
other locations, including Williamsport and the Juniata Valley (Tyrone,
Huntingdon, Lewistown) in PA, and Washington, D.C. A few
photographs and a very helpful map of the Conemaugh River Valley are
included. This is an informative yet exciting book that reads
almost like a novel. (459 pages, book, obtained from
Augustana College (SD) Library)
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Jonnes, Jill. (2007). Conquering Gotham : a
Gilded Age epic: the construction of Penn Station and its tunnels.
NY: Viking.
(Not yet annotated. Click
here for information about the book from WorldCat.)
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Kobus,
Ken, & Consoli, Jack. (1997). The Pennsy in the steel city:
150 years of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh.
Kutztown, PA: Pittsburgh Chapter, Pennsylvania Railroad Technical
& Historical Society.
This is a book was published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of
the incorporation of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was
published in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical
& Historical Society's 1996 Annual meeting, which was held in
New Kensington, Pa., and hosted by the Pittsburgh Chapter.
The authors present on overview of the history and facilities of the
Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh and the heavily industrialized
surrounding area. Brief text describes the PRR's growth and
development in Pittsburgh. The main line east of Pittsburgh
is characterized with well-captioned photographs. Each of the
various lines associated with the PRR in the Pittsburgh area are
discussed briefly, including: Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago
Railway; Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad;
Pittsburgh, Virginia & Charleston Railway; Western Pennsylvania
Railroad; and Allegheny Valley Railway. Although the text is
very brief, it is the copious black-and-white photographs (240 of them)
and their informative captions that make this book a terrific
read. Photographs of prominent stations, signal towers,
enginehouses, yards, bridges, and tunnels, as well as locomotives at
work, depict the extensive PRR physical plant in the area.
Associated city scenes and surrounding areas are also shown in the
photographs. In addition, the publication includes some very
useful maps including a 25x38-inch supplement sheet of maps and
diagrams. See also the authors' The Pennsylvania Railroad's
Golden Triangle: Main Line Panorama in the Pittsburgh Area below and
Feibelman (1979). (88 pages, book)
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Kobus, Ken & Consoli, Jack. (1998). The Pennsylvania Railroad's
golden triangle: main line panorama in the Pittsburgh area.
Upper Darby, PA: Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society.
Kobus and Consoli present their second installment covering the history
and facilities of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the Pittsburgh
area. Their first installment (see The Pennsy in the Steel
City above) presented an overview of all PRR lines into Pittsburgh
along with a detailed history of each line. This book
describes the three main PRR lines that converged at
Pittsburgh. PRR Main Line was put into service in 1854, and
the company undertook a strategy of acquisition, leasing and stock
ownership to combine a multitude of small western railroads to expand
into the Midwest. The collection of lines forming the
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railway Company (commonly
known as the Fort Wayne) was consolidated in 1861. Several
small railroads were merged into the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago
& St. Louis (commonly known as the Panhandle) in
1916. This book offers a black-and-white photographic look at
the three converging PRR lines in the Pittsburgh area with a detailed
view of some of the larger facilities. The book is organized
into three chapters covering each of the main lines with 27 pages
devoted to the PRR main line east, 20 pages devoted to the Panhandle,
and 39 pages devoted to the Fort Wayne. The substantive
information in this book is presented through the photographs and
informative captions, which are presented sequentially beginning in
downtown Pittsburgh. This book presents some truly remarkable
photographs of major PRR facilities. Eighteen photos of
Pitcairn Yard are included in 8 pages. As would be expected in
Pittsburgh, numerous views of bridges and bridges under construction
are shown. About fifteen photos of the Federal Street Station
area are included with several taken during of the construction of the
station. The importance of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago
Railway's Allegheny Shops is recognized with nineteen photographs and
two track and building maps (1893 and 1906). Of course the
Conway Yard is recognized with 15 pages containing 45 photos.
The book begins with a 1948 map of the Pittsburgh area
railroads. See also: Feibelman (1979). (91 pages,
book)
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Koehler, Larry L. & Gayvert, Morgan J. (1983).
Three feet on the panhandle: a
history of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad.
Canton, OH: Railhead Publications.
Koehler and Gayvert present a detailed history of the little-known
Waynesburg and Washington Railroad. The short (28-mile),
narrow gauge, branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad connected Waynesburg,
the county seat of Green County, and Washington, the county seat of
Washington County, in southwestern Pennsylvania southwest of
Pittsburgh. The W.&W. was formed in 1875 and opened
operations in 1877 as an independent company. However it was
sold to the PRR in 1885 and leased to another PRR road, the Chartiers
Valley Railroad. It managed to maintain its corporate
identity until 1920 when the Pennsy forced it to paint and reletter it
rolling stock as a branch line. All passenger service on the
line ended in 1929 and steam locomotives vanished in 1933.
However the I.C.C. did not permit the elimination of service on the W.
& W. Some freight service was continued until 1976
using a assortment of unusual equipment including a trackcar until 1940
and a gasoline powered 1940 Ford truck that was converted to a
railtruck until 1958. The line was regauged in
1943/44. Truck service using the roads that paralleled the
track was maintained by the PRR (and later by the Penn Central) from
1958 until the reorganization in 1976. In 1978 Penn Central
sold the rails and ties to a scrap dealer. The authors
reprint many documents in this fascinating book including the Articles
of Association of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad Company,
excerpts from W.&W. annual reports, letters, and an entry on
the W.&W. published in Poor’s Manual in 1900 that provides data
on the railroad for the year ending December 31, 1899. The
construction, development, expansion, and decline of the railroad are
covered as well as chapters on motive power, equipment and operations,
right-of-way and structures. Many photographs, diagrams of
motive power and rolling stock, and statistical data are
provided. A short history of related area railroads by Edward
C. boss is also included and an index appears at the end. See
also: Howell (1995). (208 pages, book, obtained from the
North Carolina State University Library)
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Kramer, Frederick A. (1978). Long
Island Rail Road. Newton, NJ: Carstens
Publications, Inc.
Kramer presents the story of the Long Island Rail Road in brief text,
photographs, and informative captions. The Long Island’s
131-year, 8-month, 28-day life was unique in railroad
history. The western third of its domain covered Brooklyn,
Queens, and Nassau County where the Long Island was “America’s most
efficient people hauler for decades” carrying a quarter of a million
commuters daily. The eastern two-thirds had little in common
with the commuter operations that dominated the Long Island’s
activities. Freight service was incidental on the Long
Island. It was the only class I railroad in the U.S. that
generated less revenue from freight than from passengers. The
Long Island Rail Road was chartered in 1834 with the intent to develop
rail service from Brooklyn through the length of Long Island to
Greenport. There, passengers and freight would cross the
Sound by steamboat and then continue by rail to Boston. This
New York to Boston route was accomplished by 1844.
Unfortunately a competitor completed an all-rail route on the mainland
in 1848. Difficult times began for the Long Island partially
because they had neglected development of local service in favor of the
shortest route through uninhabited areas. A merger with the
Flushing & North Side Railroad in 1876 provided little help and
the railroad’s struggle continued. In 1881 Austin Corbin took
charge of the Long Island and substantially increased business,
including branch line extensions, and property modernizations during
his sixteen-year term. The Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the
Long Island in 1900, two years after Corbin’s death. The Long
Island’s holdings gave the Pennsy a better entry into New York, and a
joint use of the proposed Penn Station would increase its traffic and
importance. PRR investment in the Long Island resulted in
electrification of the LI’s western portion between 1904 and
1906. It also made the Long Island the first railroad in the
country to use steel cars exclusively and brought its commuter trains
to Penn Station in 1910, two months before the Pennsy’s
trains. The Long Island was finally able to pay dividends to
the Pennsy in 1928, but they only continued until 1933.
Regulation of commuter fares and the development of the highway system
helped make the Long Island unprofitable. In 1949 the
Pennsylvania put the Long Island in bankruptcy. Legislation
and a $5.5 million loan from the Pennsy enabled the Long Island to
emerge as a redevelopment corporation for several years, but in 1966 it
became part of the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation
Authority. Most of Kramer’s book presents black-and-white
photographs taken by John Krause, which focus on the steam-to-diesel
transition that occurred in the area east of Jamaica.
Approximately 135 photographs are included. He also provides
a locomotive roster at the end of the book. See also: Ziel
(1984). (96 pages, book, obtained from the Kern County
Library, Bakersfield, CA)
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Kramer, Frederick A. (1980). Pennsylvania
– Reading Seashore Lines. Ambler, PA: Crusader Press.
Kramer provides a brief look at the history of the PRSL. He
begins by outlining the development of the Jersey shore as a
“playground” for the citizens of Philadelphia and other nearby
cities. Dr. Jonathan Pitney’s plan to build a healthy
vacation spot needed a railroad to provide an acceptable way for
vacationers to reach the shore. In 1854 the Camden &
Atlantic Railroad began regular daily service to what would become
Atlantic City, about a three-hour trip. After the Civil War,
Atlantic City experienced a boom period and became famous for its
Boardwalk (built in 1870 to reduce the amount of sand tracked into the
hotels). In 1877 the Philadelphia & Atlantic City
Railway began its narrow-gauge operations, and in 1880 the West Jersey
& Atlantic, a branch of the West Jersey Railroad, connected
Atlantic City to the West Jersey’s main line between Camden and Cape
May. The Pennsylvania Railroad had gained ownership of a
majority of the stock of the West Jersey in 1875, and for many years
the West Jersey’s president was George B. Roberts, the President of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. The competition between the three
railroads in Atlantic City was fierce. In 1883 the
Pennsylvania bought out the Camden & Atlantic, and the
Philadelphia & Atlantic City was taken over by the Philadelphia
& Reading Railroad, another powerful railroad at the
time. Kramer covers the further development and competition
of the two major railroads. The development of the New Jersey
highway system and the popularity of automobiles and trucks in the
1920s provided another fierce competition for the railroads. This,
along with the development of buses, devastated both the freight and
passenger railroad service to the Jersey shore. In 1929 the
South Jersey Transit Commission was established by the State to develop
a comprehensive scheme for rapid transit between Philadelphia and South
Jersey. This plan resulted in the forced consolidation and
joint operation by the Pennsylvania and Reading Railroad.
Thus the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines began operation in
1933. Kramer covers the expansion of the PRSL in the 1930s
and 1940s and the subsequent decline in the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s. The PRSL annual loss was more than $4.5 million in
1968 and 1969. The PRR had merged with the New York Central
in 1962. However the Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970
and the Reading declared bankruptcy in 1971. PRSL losses
exceeded $5 million per year in the early 1970s. In 1976 the
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines ceased to exist and became the
Seashore District of Conrail’s Philadelphia division. Kramer
includes over 170 black-and-white photographs with informative captions
and numerous illustrations including timetables, tickets, drawings, and
maps. A steam locomotive roster, diesel roster, and
passenger equipment roster is also included. See also:
Gladulich (1986). (104 pages, book obtained from the
University of Montana Libraries)
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Kusner, George S. & Seman, Nicholas. (1989). Pennsylvania Railroad
compendium, volume number one, freight car lettering arrangements 1954
- 1968. New Cumberland, PA: The Middle Division.
Kusner provides a selection of 110 technical illustrations of the
original Pennsylvania Railroad freight car lettering arrangements
issued from 1954 through 1968. The illustrations are
computer-recreated drawings or the original PRR tracings and are
referenced to the railroad's tracing numbers. He explains
that the age and usually poor condition of the original tracings and
prints required extensive restoration and redrafting. These
drawings provide a wealth of information for the historians and
modelers. They were created by the PRR to provide system-wide
uniformity in the appearance of company cars. Each drawing
illustrates the exact size, position, color, and function of all
makings used to identify the rolling stock. Both the shadow keystone
and the plain keystone designs are covered, and several pages at the
end show various styles for keystones and lettering. A table
of contents lists each tracing number, the car class of the
illustration, the car classes covered by the tracing, the date of the
original drawing, and the date the drawing was issued. These
drawings also provide detailed painting instructions. The
drawings in this book are large (10.5x15.5 inches), although they are
one-half the size of the original PRR drawings. (115 pages plus 3
folded drawings in back pocket, book)
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Lee,
Warren F. (1987). Down
along the old Bel-Del: the history of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad
Company, a Pennsylvania Railroad Company.
Albuquerque, NM: Bel-Del Enterprises.
Lee was born in Phillipsburg, NJ near the Bel-Del depot at Union
Square, and he became well acquainted with a large part of the Bel-Del
main line and the river that the railroad paralleled. After a
long career as an administrator and professor of history, mostly at the
University of Albuquerque, he began a project to produce a detailed
history of the Belvidere Delaware Railroad Company, which was a vital
part of the Pennsylvania Railroad System. The project was
sponsored by the Tri-State Railway Historical Society, Clifton,
NJ. Four years of research were undertaken to uncover as much
information as possible about the origin, operation, and disposition of
the Bel-Del and produce this book. The Bel-Del, mostly built
between 1850 and 1855, was an important carrier of passengers and
freight serving Trenton, Lambertville, Phillipsburg, and Belvidere in
New Jersey during its century and a quarter of operation. It
also served several cities in Pennsylvania as an interstate carrier
including Easton and Bangor in Northampton County, and using tracks of
the Delaware, Lackawana, and Western Railroad, Stroudsburg and East
Stroudsburg in Monroe County. More than eighty percent of the
railroad was located in New Jersey on the eastern bank of the Delaware
River in a high-density traffic area, which enabled it to deliver and
receive from principal PRR yards in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Railroad assumed control of
the Bel-Del in April 1872 through a long-term lease of the line, which
continued until 1958 when the Belvedere Delaware Railroad and several
other lines were merged into the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal
Company. There are three major chapters in this
book. Chapter one, “Origin, Development, and
Operation”, covers physical growth, development, and demise of the
Bel-Del in 124 pages. In addition to text, it presents
information about individuals, motive power, important documents,
industries, and businesses along the line, using many well-captioned
photographs, maps, illustrations, tables, timetables, and
advertisements. Chapter two, “Over the Road” (129 pages),
presents information about passenger service, depots, stations, and
geographical locations. It also includes many reproductions
of timetables, maps, and photographs of stations, trackside scenes and
structures. Chapter three, “Catastrophes, Wrecks, and
Adversities” (64 pages), addresses many wrecks including four major
tragedies that occurred on the line and presents some very interesting
photographs. Each of these three chapters also includes
documentation in an “End Notes” section. The book finishes
with a bibliography and index. (366 pages, book, obtained
from Oklahoma State University Library)
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Lee,
Warren F. & Lee, Catherine T. (1989). A Chronology of the Belvidere
Delaware Railroad Company (a Pennsylvania Railroad Company) &
the region through which it operated. Albuquerque,
NM: Bel-Del Enterprises.
Lee’s second book on the Belvidere Delaware uses the same source
materials that were used for the 1987 book. However, this
chronology compliments the first book by presenting additional
information and presenting the information in a totally different
format. The introduction states the chronology includes
information from newspapers, company documents, letters and memoirs and
presents the information essentially as it appeared in the original
source, without the interpretation or analysis that was presented in
the 1987 book. Therefore the chronology provides raw data and
the views of contemporaries, which could be used to verify and
substantiate the accounts in the previous book. In addition,
data from the chronology could provide a substantial foundation for new
research on the railroad or local histories regarding the areas the
railroad affected. Many of the entries, over 3300 items, in
the chronology were taken from regional newspapers, which reveal a
great interest in the railroad by the general public.
Although the focus of the chronology is the Belvidere Delaware, it also
presents a record of events from the history of the communities along
the line and an insight into the daily life of the railroaders and
their families. The entries are listed by the day and month
of publication or date of occurrence under year headings beginning with
1654 and ending with 1985. They are further organized into
seven chapters including: The Era Prior to Construction Through 1850;
The Independent Years, 1851-1871; Depression and Boom, 1872-1880; Many
Good Years, A Few Poor Years, 1881-1900; The Zenith Years, 1900-1916;
From War to War, 1917-1945; The Late Years, Demise and
Beyond. The length of the entries ranges from one to ten
lines. Also included are 125+ black-and-white photographs,
several track and yard maps, timetables, several short essays, a few
short documents, corrections and commentaries for the previous book,
and an index. (389 pages, book, obtained from Hunterdon
County Library, Flemington, NJ)
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Loeb, Betty Wagner. (1999). Altoona
and the Pennsylvania Railroad: between a roar and a whimper.
Altoona, PA: The Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical
Society.
Loeb presents a lovingly crafted story of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s
relationship with the city it built as a base of operations on the
eastern slopes of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1849 the PRR
purchased 224 acres of farmland at a cost of about $10,000. A
35-acre tract was designated for the PRR shops, and the remainder was
sold for town lots. The PRR named its town Altoona, possibly
from the Cherokee word Allatoona, meaning “high lands of great
worth”. Colonel Beverly Mayer, the civil engineer who laid
out the tracks in the railroad yards, may also have bestowed the name
after the city of Altona in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which was an
important railway center. Altoona is 235 miles west of
Philadelphia and 116 miles east of Pittsburgh. It is situated
where single locomotives needed additional power to scale the
2,300-foot Allegheny Mountains. The PRR shops constructed,
repaired, and maintained the motive power to conquer the
mountains. Incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854,
Altoona’s population rose to 10,610 by 1870. Loeb’s story of
Altoona and the PRR is told using short factual text segments and
almost 200 unique and fascinating photographs. Part I presents a brief history of the city’s birth.
Part II presents the development of the city including city services,
schools, hotels, libraries, ethnicity, neighborhoods, recreation,,
etc. Part III covers the PRR shops, which provided the city’s
major employment until the company’s demise in the late
1960s. Part IV discusses the dirty and difficult lives of the
men and women who worked in the PRR shops as well as the labor unions,
the Mutual Beneficial Association, the great depression, WWII, and
more. The famous Horseshoe Curve, located about five miles
west of Altoona in covered in Part V. The book also includes
Altoona’s Last Trolley Day by John D. Denny, Jr., Altoona’s Towers and
Interlockings by William Stassner, Altoona Geography is Destiny by
Peter D. Barton, Executive Director of the Altoona Railroaders Memorial
Museum, and excerpts from the PRR employment diary of W.C. Snyder,
which presents highlights of his services in Altoona and Hollidaysburg
from 1888 to 1914. Also included are a regional PRR map and
Altoona yard diagrams. This book contains some truly
remarkable photographs of the PRR shops and the men and women who
toiled in them. For those of us who grew up in PRR families
in Altoona it is a treasure. (99 pages, book)
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Lorenz, Bob. (1979). The 50
best of PRR: book four, a portfolio of the favorite fifty photographs
from railfandom's famous brush and lens artist.
Baltimore, MD: Barnard, Roberts & Co.
Bob Lorenz started photographing trains in the early forties and states
that his PRR works are his favorites. The fourth book in this
photographic series presents 52 extraordinary black-and-white
photographs of Pennsy scenes and equipment taken by Lorenz.
Charles S. Roberts wrote the captions for all the photos. The
images are presented in an eight-by-ten-inch format. See
also: Davis (1977) and Harwood (1978). (52 pages, book)
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Lost Masterpieces.
(1999). London: Phaidon.
This beautiful book is part of Phaidon’s Architecture 3s series, each
of which reprints information on three structures that are similar in
some way. Lost Masterpieces covers three building that are
“among the most significant works of the last two centuries, and yet
none of them stands today.” Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace
was a temporary structure built for the Great Exhibition in London in
1851. Ferdinand Dutert’s Palais des Machines was built for
the Paris Exhibition of 1889. McKim, Mead and White’s
Pennsylvania Station was built from 1905-1910 in New York
City. In their introduction in Lost Masterpieces, Beth Dunlop
and Denis Hector remind us that Pennsylvania Station was a temple of
progress that served as the destination for America’s increasingly
efficient railroad system. They also remind us that McKim,
Mead and White surely regarded the station as a permanent
monument. They contend that the demolition of such a
monumental and imposing structure as Pennsylvania Station was
unthinkable, and it remains a major symbol of the American Preservation
Movement. This book reprints in full Steven Parissien’s 1996
history and chronology of Pennsylvania Station and includes all
photographs and drawings from that publication, which was part of
Phaidon’s Architecture in Detail series. See also: Parissien
(1996). (unpaged, book, obtained from University of Minnesota
Libraries, Twin Cities Campus)
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Lovell, Joseph D. (1984). Pennsylvania
Railroad Altoona Machine Shops construction number list, 1866-1904.
[Philadelphia]: Library of American Transportation, National Railway
Historical Society.
No US railroad built as many of its own locomotives as did the
PRR. Between November 1866 and January 1904 the PRR's Altoona
Machine Shops built 2,289 locomotives, a number only exceeded by the
4,584 built at the Juniata Shops between July 1891 and June
1946. Lovell, a long-time employee of the PRR at Altoona,
chronicled every locomotive built at AMS during its 38 years of
existence. He completed his compilation in 1939 and presented
ten loose-leaf binders to a friend. In 1953 the work was
given to the PRR library. Eventually the binders were
acquired by the National Railway Historical Society whose editorial
staff turned the pencil notebook pages into this book.
Locomotives are listed in order by construction number with the date of
construction, class, road number, and remarks indicating such
information as when the engine was demolished, or when it was sold to
another railroad, or what modifications were applied and
when. Also included are sections containing an original road
number to construction number cross-reference list and a later road
number to construction number cross-reference list. (113
pages, book, obtained from the State Historical Society of Wisconsin
library)
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McGonigal,
Robert S. (1996). Heart
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the main line: Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.
Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Books.
This is the fourth volume in Kalmbach’s Golden Years of Railroading
series which take the reader trackside through the black-and-white
photographs from the publisher’s photo archives. The Golden
Years of Railroading series depicts railroading from the end of world
War II through the late 1950s when steam locomotive and new diesel
locomotives worked side by side. This book covers the
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh route, which was made up of three divisions,
i.e., The Philadelphia Division from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, the
Middle Division from Harrisburg to Altoona, and the Pittsburgh Division
from Altoona to Pittsburgh. McGonigal, an associate editor of
Trains Magazine, begins with a brief, five-page, history of the
Pennsylvania Railroad and then presents three chapters covering the
three divisions. Each chapter contains a three-to-four page
introduction and then describes Pennsy operations and equipment with
numerous captioned photographs. The author completes the book
with a brief chapter that describes the changes that have occurred on
the line during the Conrail and Amtrak years followed by an index of
the photographs. Many very interesting photographs are
offered in this work. However many of them were previously
published in Trains Magazine or elsewhere, so many readers may not find
much unique material here. Also, the quality of some of the
photographs is somewhat diminished by rather dark printing.
However McGonigal has constructed a worthwhile portfolio (120
photographs) that depicts this highly industrial and industrious main
line during an interesting time period. (127 pages, book)
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Meader, Stephen W. (1944). The
long trains roll. New York: Harcourt, Brace and
Company.
This novel is based on the alleged Nazi plot to disrupt rail traffic on
the Horseshoe Curve during World War II. The story is set in
the mountains of Pennsylvania east of Pittsburgh. Real place
names are not used, except Pittsburgh. Instead, the “big
curve”, “Calico Gap”, and “Gaptown” serve as the place names.
Pennsy is referred to only once in the book. However it is
quite evident the book’s setting is the Horseshoe Curve and Altoona
area. The story focuses on a seventeen-year-old young man
named Randy MacDougal, who works as a “gandy dancer” on a section gang
on the curve and surrounding vicinity and later as a fireman.
Randy’s father is a “hogger” or “hoghead” providing helper service over
the gap to the heavy freights, and his sister works as a secretary in
the Gaptown car shops. Randy uncovers a plan to
dynamite tons of rocks onto the curve tracks and other sabotage to
hinder the movement of troops, and military supplies over the
gap. Railroad security and the FBI get involved and there is
some excitement before Randy becomes a hero. Aside from the
sabotage storyline, the book presents an interesting description of the
important, physically difficult, and dangerous work of section gang
workers. If the roadbeds and tracks were not maintained no
trains would roll. It also provides a very interesting look
at the strategic role of railroads during World War II and the
considerable efforts that were undertaken to maintain their
security. The book refers to unending traffic of “long
strings of heavy flatcars, loaded with anti-aircraft guns, tanks and
Army tractors-grotesque-shaped monsters under their tarpaulin covers”
along with uncountable cars marked explosives and “passengers coaches,
with disheveled boys in khaki crowed at every window”. It
also places military troops patrolling the mountains surrounding the
railroad right of way and observation planes overhead. “Wars
are no longer fought merely by armies, navies and air forces.
The curse of human hate and suffering and bloodshed involves whole
populations, reaches into homes and factories, tears at the foundations
of all civilized life. The effort on each side is to destroy
the production and transportation that enable the enemy to keep on
fighting.” This is a very enjoyable read for anyone
interested in the Pennsy or railroad history in general.
Edward Shenton illustrated the book. (259 pages, book,
obtained from University of Minnesota Libraries)
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Messer, David W. (1999). Triumph
II: Philadelphia to Harrisburg, 1828-1998.
Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts and Co.
This second book in the Triumph series is primarily concerned with the
PRR between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, i.e., the Philadelphia
Division, with some additional information on the Columbia, West
Chester, Coatesville, New Holland, and Quarryville Branches.
Messer begins with a thirty-two-page chapter outlining the beginning of
the Pennsylvania Railroad during the struggle to return Philadelphia to
its former status as a major trade center and seaport.
Competition from the construction of the Erie Canal to the north and
from the B&O to the south had usurped Philadelphia's prominence
in favor of New York and Baltimore. Messer begins with
Colonel John Stevens' efforts to convince the business community and
the state of Pennsylvania that a steam railroad between Philadelphia
and Pittsburgh would be far superior to the system of canals that were
in operation at the time. Chapters 2 through 4 cover the
development of the PRR mainline through Harrisburg and the Rockville
Bridge, mostly through numerous photographs with informative captions
and a few pages of text. Chapters 5 and 6 cover the Trenton
Cutoff, the Low-Grade Line and Enola Yard in the same manner.
Chapter 7 presents a profile of the contributions of John Edgar Thomson
drawn from James A. Ward's J. Edgar Thomson: Master of the
Pennsylvania. Chapter 8, Triumph in Color, presents color
photographs of the PRR and its successors, as was done in a similar
chapter in Triumph I. The last chapter briefly ponders the
legacy of the PRR, and the conclusions from the Report of the
Investigating Committee of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company,
originally presented to the stockholders in 1884, is published as an
appendix. A bibliography and index are included at
the end of the book. Interestingly, Charles Roberts, author
of Triumph I and editor of the Triumph series, also inserted a
three-page response to some of the criticisms of Triumph I.
Messer does not cover electrification in detail because a subsequent
volume in the series will cover it. Like Triumph I, this book
makes its most significant contribution through its fabulous assemblage
of captioned, mostly black-and-white, photographs (approximately 660)
and illustrations. See also: Roberts (1997). (399
pages, book, obtained from Angelo State University Library)
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Messer, David W. & Roberts, Charles S. (2000).
Triumph III: Philadelphia terminal, 1838-2000.
Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts and Co.
Not yet annotated.
-
Messer, David W. & Roberts,
Charles S. (2001). Triumph IV: Harrisburg to Altoona, 1846-2001.
Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts
& Co.
Not yet annotated.
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Messer, David W. & Roberts,
Charles S. (2002). Triumph V: Philadelphia to New York, 1830-2002.
Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts & Co.
Not yet annotated.
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Middleton, William D. (1996). Manhattan
gateway: New York's Pennsylvania Station. Waukesha,
WI: Kalmbach Publishing.
Middleton, a retired naval engineer and university administrator, has
published hundreds of articles and photographs, and more than a dozen
books on the history of railroading since 1949. This book
presents a first-rate history Pennsylvania Station and its associated
engineering feats that significantly added to the grandeur and
competitive edge of the mighty PRR. He covers the early
proposals for extending the PRR line into downtown Manhattan in the
late 1800s, the glory years of the 1920s, and the sad demolition of the
station in the 1960s. Appropriately, he provides extensive
coverage of the tunnel and electrification projects with many maps,
diagrams, and photographs showing the work in progress. In
addition, he provides short biographical sketches of the men who played
a leadership role in the 160 million-dollar project, including PRR
President A.J. Cassatt, Vice President Samuel Rea, and engineers
Charles Walker Raymond, Charles Mattathias Jacobs, Alfred Noble, and
George Gibbs. Middleton begins his history of the station in
a chapter entitled "A Great Roman Palazzo". He describes the
unique, low, horizontal building, rising to only 60 feet above street
level, except over the main waiting room where the roof soared to 153
feet, with the tracks located 40 to 60 feet below street level, as a
"monumental bridge" over the railroad's tracks. Many
photographs and illustrations of the building and a short biographical
sketch of architect Charles Follen McKim are included. One of
Middleton's most interesting contributions is his presentation of the
importance, and notoriety, of Pennsylvania Station not only to the PRR,
but also to the nation. Obviously the economic benefit to the
company and to country is well recognized. However,
Pennsylvania Station was a magnificent Manhattan gateway to the entire
East Coast, as well as points south and west, for millions of people
from its opening in 1910 until its destruction in the 1960s.
It was the setting of numerous historical events, was pictured in
countless magazines, newsreels and movies, and was written about in
many books, short stories, and popular songs. Its demise,
like the demise of its parent railroad, is still very painful to many
people. Middleton includes 165 photographs or illustrations,
a bibliography, and an index. See also: Condit (1980), Couper
(1912), Parissien (1996), Westing (1978). (159 pages, book)
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Moore, Peter. (2000). The
destruction of Penn Station: photographs by Peter Moore.
New York: Distributed Art Publishers.
This books presents more than 100 black-and-white photographs taken by
the late Peter Moore. Better known for his photographs of
avante-garde performances, Moore and his wife, Barbara, lived a few
blocks from Pennsylvania Station. In the introduction, Barbara Moore,
who edited the book, explains that the station became an important part
of their daily lives. In addition to serving as their gateway
to the West Side, it housed a local sandwich shop and the Savarin
coffee shop, which they visited often. Like the avante-garde
performances that he usually photographed, Peter Moore decided that he
must record the last production of Penn Station, i.e., its
destruction. He contacted the public relations department for
the railroad and was granted access to the demolition areas.
From 1963 to 1966 he made thirty photographic forays to the
site. However the resulting photographs were stored away and
never shown prior to the publication of this book. The
photographs are grouped by year and presented only with dates, no
captions. They are both beautiful and sad because they show
the magnificence and strength of the structure as well as document its
destruction. Moore’s attention to detail is evident
in numerous exterior photographs the reveal how this structure and its
destruction impacted the environment of the neighborhood. His
numerous interior shots provide closeup views of the demolition of the
station’s magnificence. His photos of commuters waiting for
trains inside the station an people on the streets outside the station
while the destruction was under way reveal how its destruction was part
of the daily lives of those who used it. They also portray
the incongruity of a structure that was still providing service even
while it was being dismantled. Barbara Moore provided an
introduction. Eric P. Nash provided an essay about the
station and some of Moore’s photographs of it. Lorraine B.
Diehl provided a short chronology of relevant events. See
also: Diehl (1985) & Parissien (1966). (128 pages, book,
obtained from University of Minnesota Libraries)
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Murray, Michael S.; Yanosey, Robert J.; & Sherwin, Wayne. (2001).
Trackside on the PRR north of Washington, DC with Wayne Sherwin.
Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside series
presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who worked in
many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. In volume 20 of the series, Murray and Yanosey
present the color photographic work of Wayne Sherwin who grew up in the
Washington D.C. area and began working for the PRR as a brakeman in
1955 at the PRR’s Benning Yard north of Union Station. In
1956 he became a fireman and worked all over the Chesapeake Region
including York, Wilmington, Baltimore, and other locations until
1961. This gave him many opportunities to enjoy his avocation
of railroad photography, which he had begun in 1947 at the age of
thirteen. Like the other books in the Trackside series,
this book presents many spectacular photographs of PRR locomotives,
equipment, facilities and settings. The photographs picture
the PRR on the Washington D.C. to New York mainline and on the previous
Northern Central route from Baltimore through Harrisburg.
Locations include Ivy City, Potomac Yard Benning Yard, Landover MD,
Bowie MD, Newark DE, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Waverly Yard in Newark,
Meadows Yard in Kearney NJ, Atlantic City NJ, York, Rockville Bridge,
Northumberland, Williamsport, Enola Yard and others. In
addition, 18 pages (15% of the book and about 14% of the photographs)
show locations west of Harrisburg, including Altoona, Horseshoe Curve,
Columbus and a few other Ohio locations, and Chicago. More
than 220 remarkable photographs are included in this book.
About 26% picture steam locomotives, 21% picture diesel locomotives,
and 22% depict electric locomotive. Approximately 26% of the
photographs depict PRR facilities and locations without any locomotives
in view or with two or more types of locomotives in view, and 5% of the
photos picture train wrecks/derailments. Most of the
photographs date from the early 1950s through the late 1960s with a few
in the 1970s and early 1980s. The editors also provide a
brief biography of Mr. Sherwin, a brief overview of railroading history
north of Washington D.C., and informative photograph captions.
In addition, interesting comments by Mr. Sherwin are
included. This is another excellent addition to the Trackside
series. (128 pages, book, obtained from the Library of
Congress).
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Nelson, Douglas M. &
Hastings, Philip R. (2002). Philip
R. Hastings: Portrait of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Los Angeles: Pine Tree Press.
Nelson and Pine
Tree Press have produced an extraordinary collection of 145 photographs
by the late Philip R. Hastings. These black-and-white
photographs reveal Hastings exception talent of capturing panoramic
views of working locomotives, which reveal the wayside and the
structures and landscapes beyond. In addition, Hastings
photographs depict working railroaders attending to equipment and
services, interior views of locomotives cabs and signal towers, and
many structures that were part of the Pennsy's landscape.
Hastings' photographic legacy is exquisite and the reproductions in
this book, printed in duotone black and white, are beautiful.
Nelson selected 145 very impressive photographs, taken between 1948 and
1957, from an archive of over 800 negatives of Hastings' Pennsy images
held by the California State Railroad Museum Library. Most of
the negatives were unlabeled, but Nelson's knowledge of the PRR enabled
him to create very informative captions with help from Hastings'
notebooks and some of Hastings' photos that were previously published
with captions in Trains magazine or
books. This book includes a forward by Kevin P. Keefe,
Associate Publisher of Trains magazine discussing
Hastings work for Trains and his relationship with
David P. Morgan, longtime editor of Trains. An
introduction provides a brief discussion of Hastings work and a brief
history of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The book also contains
an afterward by photographer Jim Shaughnessy about his longtime
friendship with Hastings. The photographs are organized in
the following chapters and PRR maps are included: Enola Yard,
Rockville Bridge, and
Westward; Over
The Alleghenies; Pittsburgh
- The Golden Triangle; The Northern Region (Shamokin Branch,
Elmira Branch, Renovo, etc.); Camden, New Jersey, and Odenton,
Maryland. An appendix includes notes transcribed from Hastings'
notebooks for his Pennsylvania Railroad trips. (128 pages,
book, obtained from the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton
County)
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Orr, John W. (2001).
Set up running: the life of a Pennsylvania engineman, 1904-1949.
University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Orr tells the story of his father’s long career as a locomotive
engineer on the Williamsport Division of the Pennsylvania
Railroad. As a boy growing up in Ralston, PA the
author developed a fascination for railroads fueled by his observation
of railroad activity and his father’s railroading stories.
His special relationship with his father, Oscar P. Orr, enabled him to
experience his father’s working life through those stories,
conversations, and detailed discussions until O.P. died in
1954. This oral history is one of the most remarkable books I
have ever read. It presents incredible details about the
daily work routines and experiences of this long-time steam locomotive
engineer. It depicts a hard-working, skilled, engineman who
was loyal to the Pennsy. However it also reveals the
hardships and difficult life styles that were required of enginemen
during the first half of the 20th century. It presents an
abundance of detailed information about the operation and capabilities
of the various steam locomotives that were used. Oscar P. Orr
was born on in 1883 near Bellefonte, PA. He took his first
job firing the stationary boilers at a steam heating plant in
Bellefonte in 1902. O.P. began his PRR career as a fireman on
the Williamsport Division in 1904. In 1909 O.P. was “set up
running” as an engineer of a Class R H3 locomotive on a yard
crew. Over the next 40 years O.P. would operate almost every
type of stream locomotive (and every run) that ran on the Williamsport
Division. His run assignments as an engineer included
Williamsport Yards (1909-1910), Ralston to Tyrone (1910-1930),
Southport to Altoona (1930-1931), Altoona to Wilkes-Barre (1931-1933),
Altoona to Harrisburg (1933-1934), Lykons to Millersburg (1935-1936),
Southport to Enola (1936-1937), Williamsport Yards (1937-1947), and
Williamsport to Renovo (1947-1949). He much preferred
over-the-road runs where he could “let the horses have their head” and
run better than 80 miles an hour on selected sections of
track. He clocked himself by timing mileposts at 93 miles an
hour at times. However those over-the-road runs often
prevented O.P. from getting home each night, so he took yard
assignments, which enabled him to spend more time at home with his
family. This book puts the reader in the cab where they can
experience the complexity of these mighty steam locomotives, hear the
conversations between the train crew, and witness the hardships and
dangers that they endured. It also reveals the relationships
between the train crews, the dispatchers, and the
administration. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and very
informative read. Included are a few maps, track diagrams,
and photographs, a glossary of terms, and a short list of other books
and videotapes. (376 pages, book)
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Parissien,
Steven. (1996). Pennsylvania Station: McKim, Mead and White.
London: Phaidon.
This beautiful book is part of the publisher's Architecture in Detail
series, which covers internationally renowned buildings such as
Fallingwater, Oxford Museum, University of Pennsylvania Library, Grand
Central Terminal, and many others. Each sixty-page
volume in the series is written and compiled by authoritative authors,
and presents a history of the building, numerous small and large format
photographs (all black-and-white in this volume), technical drawings
and working details, and a bibliography and chronology of the
building. Parissien, Assistant Director of the Paul Mellon
Centre for Studies in British Art in London, provides an excellent
history and chronology of Pennsylvania Station, which has been
described as the greatest railroad station in the world and one of the
greatest building projects of the early twentieth century.
PRR President Alexander Cassatt commissioned Charles McKim of the
architectural firm, McKim, Mead and White, to design the tunnels into
central Manhattan and a large station and hotel. In 1906
William Symmes Richardson was made a full partner in the firm and
assumed responsibility for a large part of the design due to McKim's
failing health. The design combined Beaus-Arts neoclassicism
with the latest steel-frame technology, and Parissien details both the
exterior and interior of the architectural design and its
influences. He also discusses the use of the building from
1910-1960, the struggle to save the building, its demolition, and the
site today. The numerous large photographs and drawings
provide an excellent characterization of this lost treasure. See also:
Condit (1980), Couper (1912), Middleton (1996), Westing (1978). (60
pages, book)
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Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical Society. (2000).
Lewistown and the Pennsylvania Railroad: from moccasins to steel wheels: a collection of
essays. Altoona, PA: The Society.
This collection of essays was originally intended to chronicle the
efforts that transformed the old PRR station at Lewistown Junction into
the archive for the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical and Historical
Society. However the end result is a much broader, and more
useful, product that describes the settling of Mifflin County
Pennsylvania, and the development of the transportation system in the
area. Of course the Pennsylvania Railroad played an important
role in that transportation system and about 63% of the book is devoted
to information about the PRR including the restoration of the Lewistown
Junction Station. The book includes the following
chapters: * Lewistown – A Juniata River
Community by Forest K. Fisher * History of Transportation in
Mifflin County by the Lewistown Sentinel * The Juniata Canal by Albright G.
“Zip” Zimmerman * The Lewistown & Reedsville
Electric Railway Co. by Gordon P. Frederick * The Kishacoquillas Valley Railroad
by John G. Hartzler * History of Standard Steel by Paul
T. Fagley * Air Service in Mifflin County by
Ben Anthony, Donald Smith and the Lewistown Sentinel * The Pennsylvania Railroad in
Lewistown by J.D. Lynch, Jr. * The Towers and Interlockings That
Controlled Train Movements in the Mifflin-Denholm-Lewistown Area of the
PRR Middle Division by William E. Strassner and The PRR-Fax Group * The PRR Main Line Coal Wharf at
Denholm by Peter M. Forbes * Hawstone Track Pans, pictorial * The PRR’s Sunbury &
Lewistown Branch by Carstens Publications * The Milroy Branch, pictorial * Lewistown Yard, pictorial
* PRR Lewistown Wreck Train, pictorial * Lewistown Junction Station,
pictorial * Rebirth of Lewistown Junction
Station by Peg Stanley. Also included is
a reprint of a short article about a train robbery that occurred in the
Hawstone area of the Lewistown Narrows in August , 1909, and numerous
tables, maps, illustrations, interlocking diagrams, yard track
diagrams, and drawings. More than 360 mostly-black-and-white,
captioned, photographs are included. This is a very effective
blend of interesting photographs and informative text. (161
pages, book)
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Pennypacker, Bert;
Cope, David H.; Ellis, William; & Watson, Frank. (2000).
Trackside around Philadelphia, 1946-1969, with Dave Cope, Bill Ellis &
Frank Watson. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside series
presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who worked in
many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Volume, 16, presents the work of David H. Cope,
William Ellis, and Frank L. Watson covering Philadelphia tracksides
from 1946-1969. This book presents more than 230 color
photographs, many from an era when black and white photography was in
vogue. Bert Pennypacker provides information about the life
and work of each photographer along with an overview of railroading in
Philadelphia. In addition, he adds lengthy and very
informative captions for each photograph, which tells the reader about
the settings, equipment, facilities, and dates of the
photographs. The book also includes reproductions of
promotional materials, train timetables, and maps.
The Reading Company, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Philadelphia
trolleys are also covered in this book. However, forty-eight
pages are devoted to the Pennsylvania Railroad, which features almost
80 photos taken by David Cope, and twenty pages are devoted to the
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, which features about 25 photos by
William Ellis. These two sections include more than 135
photographs, i.e., slightly more than 57% of the total number of photos
published in the book. PRR steam equipment photos include
E5s, E6s, L1s, K4s, D16 and D16sb, G5s, H8sb, H9s, B6sb, and
others. The electric equipment photos include plenty of GG1,
B1 electric switcher, GP38, P5a, MP54 m.u., P5a boxcab, and
others. The excellent photographs with very informative and
extremely interesting captions in this book will be enjoyed by anyone
interested in railroading during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. It
will be of particular interest to those of us who have lived in
Philadelphia or have traveled by PRR to and from
Philadelphia. (128 pages, book, obtained from Phoenix Public
Library)
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Pennypacker, Bert &
Staufer, Alvin F. (1984). The
many faces of the Pennsy K-4. Hicksville, NJ: N.J.
International, Inc.
Pennypacker and Staufer team up again (See Staufer's Pennsy Power and
Pennsy Power II) to provide a much more substantive look at the beloved
Pennsy K4 Pacific steam locomotive than does Harry Albrecht in his
1967, thirty-nine page, pamphlet (Pennsylvania Railroad K-4s: Steam
Locomotives of Yesteryear). The Many Faces of the Pennsy K-4
(number 6 in the publisher's Classic Power series) includes fairly
lengthy text, about 150 black-and-white photographs, and 20 color
photographs covering the ancestry, development, and use of the Pennsy
K-4 locomotives. The first K-4 locomotive was designed and
built at the Juniata Locomotive Shops in Altoona and tested at the
Altoona Test Plant in 1914, and the locomotives were constructed
between 1917 and 1928. The Pennsy K-4 fleet reached its
pinnacle of 425 in 1929, and in 1947 Pennsy K-4 locomotives still
numbered 422 and were the prime main line steam passenger
engines. Only three K-4 locomotives had been
scrapped. Pennypacker and Staufer supply fascinating and
informative text dispersed into numerous sections throughout this book
that provide detailed information about the locomotives.
Included are sections entitled, "The Ideal Pacific-How the Legendary
K4s Was Made", "Expansion Years-Growth of the K4s.", "The Performance
Challenge-The K4s Enters a New Phase of Power and Speed", "Gadgetry
Unlimited-The K4s Get a Touch of Super Power" and others. The
authors also provide their personal recollections of the classic K4s
and a description of two dramatic crashes involving K4 locomotives and
their trains (one in Pittsburgh and one near Altoona) which resulted in
the scrapping of the first three K4s. Included are
photographs of K4 locomotives under construction, fold-out schematic
drawings of K4 locomotives and their parts, a fold-out color graphic of
a 1940 streamlined K4s, several tables showing technical
specifications, and a complete K4 roster showing the road number,
construction number, date of construction, builder, and date and type
of dispensation for each K4 locomotive. See also: Albrecht
(1967) and Kramer (1992) under Miscellaneous. (177 pages,
book)
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Plant, Jeremy F.
(2004). Trackside on the PRR in central
Pennsylvania. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside
series presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who
worked in many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Most books in this series each feature the color
photography of one or two photographers. However, this volume
35 in the Trackside series, edited by Jeremy F.
Plant, collects photographs from several different photographers taken
from 1947 through 1968. . The color photographs of Arthur Angstadt,
George Dimond, Emery Gulash, Lloyd Hall, Lawson Hill, Arch Kantner,
Bruce Kantner, and James P. Shuman are included. Mr. Plant
selected more than 230 stunning color photographs that depict PRR
equipment and settings from just west of Philadelphia in the east to
the vicinity of the Horseshoe Curve in the west.
Diesel locomotives are pictured in approximately 58% of the
photos. Steam locomotives are shown in 32% and electric
locomotives are seen in 10%. The images were captured on main
line hot spots such as Rockville Bridge, Enola Yard, and Banks Tower
near Harrisburg and, my favorite locations, Altoona, Horseshoe Curve,
Gallitzin, and Cresson in the Allegheny Mountains. In
addition to locations near the main line, this book includes many
photographs covering major north/south branch lines and east/west
arteries off them. PRR action is shown at locations such as
Millersburg, Sunbury, Shamokin, Mount Carmel, Pottsville, Wilkes-Barre,
Williamsport, and Renovo. It’s a very diverse collection of
photographs covering PRR equipment at work in rural scenic areas as
well as industrial settings. Mr. Plant includes a brief, but
informative, overview of the PRR’s operations in central Pennsylvania
and informative photograph captions. I enjoyed this book very
much. (128 pages, book, obtained from Library Of Congress)
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Plant, Jeremy F. & Angstadt,
Arthur. (2001). Trackside around Allentown, PA, 1947-1968 with Arthur Angstadt.
Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside
series presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who
worked in many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Volume 24 of this series presents the color
photography of Arthur Angstadt, a lifelong resident of the Allentown
area. Angstadt's photographs are fabulous and and this book
contains some truly remarkable and beautiful images of this highly
industrialized yet mountainous area. Unfortunately the Pennsy
was not a major player among the railroads in the Lehigh
Valley. Therefore all but a very small portion of this book
is devoted to smaller eastern roads such as the Reading , the Central
Railroad of Jew Jersey, the Lehigh Valley, the Lehigh & Hudson
River, and the Lehigh & New England. In addition to
Allentown, the settings include Bethlehem, Easton, and the Pennsylvania
Dutch area including Emmaus, Kutztown, and others. The PRR's
Belvidere & Delaware (the Bel-Del) branch reached Easton, PA
and its sister city, Phillipsburg, NJ along the east bank of the
Delaware River. In Phillipsburg, NJ, two Pennsylvania Alco
RS1 roadswitchers are pictured in 1959 and 1960, and a Baldwin
roadswitcher is shown in 1956. Also included are three
photographs of the gas-electric tuscan "Doodlebug" (4653) during a 1957
fantrip between Phillipsburg and Trenton, NJ. The book also
includes brief biographical information about Author Angstadt, an
outline of railroads serving the Allentown area, maps, and very
informative photograph captions. This book is another
excellent addition to the trackside series and should be very enjoyable
to anyone who enjoys railroad photography or railroad
history. (128 page, book, obtained from Muhlenberg College
Library, Allentown, PA)
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Plant, Jeremy F.; Caloroso, Bill;
& Hall, Lloyd. (2003). Trackside Around
Sayre-Towanda-Waverly with Lloyd Hall. Scotch
Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside
series presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who
worked in many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Volume 27 of this series presents the color
photography of Lloyd Hall, a lifelong resident of Towanda, PA, who
earned a degree in chemical engineering from Pennsylvania State College
(now University) and returned to Towanda to work for Sylvania Electric
Products until his retirement in 1986. He inherited his
interest in railroads from his father who worked for the Susquehanna
& New York Railroad as a station agent and then the Lehigh
Valley as a telegrapher. Hall's father and uncle passed their
interest in photography to him and his color photography of the Towanda
region dates back to 1948. Hall's photography has not been
widely published, but about 50% of the photographs in Bill Caloroso's
Pennsylvania Railroad's Elmira Branch were taken by Hall. Most of Hall's
photography was done within a 30-mile radius of Towanda. Of
course, photographs of the Lehigh Valley Railroad cover about 79 pages
of this book because the Lehigh Valley dominated the area with its
large yard and shop complex at Sayre. The Erie Railroad is
covered on 15 pages. The Lackawanna and the Erie-Lackawanna
Railroads are covered on 16 pages, and the Delaware & Hudson
are covered on two pages. The Pennsylvania Railroad Elmira
Branch is covered on 8 pages, which present a selection of photographs
the were not previously published in the Caloroso book.
Sixty-six percent of the PRR photographs included here were taken in
1957. Thirteen photographs picture steam locomotives,
including H-9, I-1 Decapod, L-1 Mikado, and M-1 locomotives.
Four photographs present diesel locomotives, including F3, F7, GP7, and
RS-11 locomotives. Four picture both steam and diesel
locomotives. In addition, there is a photograph in the Lehigh
Valley section of the book that shows some derailed
Pennsylvania Railroad boxcars being cleaned up after a wreck
in February 1950 at Mehoopany, east of Towanda. All the
photographs in this book, which were taken in Pennsylvania, were taken
in Bradford County around Towanda and Sayre and on the Elmira Branch
south from the NY state line to Grover at the far southwestern corner
of the county. The book includes maps covering the lines of
each of the railroads, introductions by both Plant and Caloroso, brief
information about the geography and history of the region, brief
biographical information about Lloyd Hall, introductions for each
railroad, and informative and interesting photograph
captions. This is another fine addition to Morning Sun's Trackside
series. (128 pages, book, obtained from the New York State
Library)
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Plant, Jeremy F. & Shuman,
James P. (2000). Trackside
under Pennsy Wires with James P. Shuman. Scotch
Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside
series presents the amazing work of many railroad photographers who
worked in many different locations from the 1940s through the
mid-1970s. Volume 19 of this series presents the color
photography of James P. Shuman, who grew up in the Lancaster, PA
area. After returning from military service in Saipan during
WWII, Mr. Shuman began a long career with the Pennsylvania Railroad as
a relief agent and damage prevention specialist working i many
locations including the Trenton Cutoff, Downingtown, Coatesville,
Christiana, Elizabethtown, Landisville, Middletown, Carlisle,
Mechanicsburg, and others. He also help found, and played
several leadership roles in, the National Railway Historical
Society. This book features over 200 of Shuman's excellent
photographs of PRR equipment under the wires along the electrified
lines in the Pennsylvania Dutch country between Harrisburg and
Philadelphia during the company's final years. The photos
capture P5as, GG1s, and E44s during a time of decline for the
company. That decline is visible in many of the photos, but
traces traces of the company's former greatness is visible as
well. Plant includes a brief biography of James P. Shuman, a
brief history of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the eastern half of the
state, and a brief essay on Pennsy motive power during the
period. Like the other books in the Trackside series, this
book includes many remarkable photographs of motive power, bridges, and
trackside locations. All the the photographs are accompanied
by informative captions. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book
for any PRR enthusiast, and indeed for anyone who likes railroad
photography. (128 pages, book, obtained form the Library of
Congress)
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Plant,
Jeremy F. & Yanosey, Robert J. (1999). Pennsylvania: standard railroad
of the world. Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun books.
Plant and Yanosey and their publisher have created a thoroughly
enjoyable book that illustrates the greatness of the Pennsylvania
Railroad even as it declined in the 1950s and 1960s. Using
over 200 color photographs selected from the work of 36 photographers
and numerous color reproductions of PRR promotional materials along
with informative captions and chapter introductions, they show how the
Pennsy’s grandiose nature was still visible in the 1940s and early
1950s. The obvious decline of the 1960s is also
visible. The book begins with a brief, but cogent, history of
the PRR. Next it examines some of the motive power that most
typified the Pennsy, including chapters on K4, M1, I1, T1, GG1, P5,
electric switchers, freight electrics, E44, centipedes, passenger
sharks, freight sharks, transfer units, Baldwin switchers, E units, F
units, Geeps, second generation diesels, and critters. The
book then presents a tour of the 10,000 mile system including mainlines
and branchlines. These chapters include: *New York City, *New
York & Long Branch, *Diesels on the NY & LB,
*Princeton, *Bel-Del-Line, *Rail Motor Cars, *Camden, *Pemberton
Branch, *Baldwins on the Pemberton Branch, *Atlantic City,
*Philadelphia Commuter Scenes, *Wilmington, *Demarva Line, *Washington,
*Harrisburg, *Rockville Bridge, *Enola Yard, *Buffalo Line, *Canada,
*Middle Division, *Horseshoe Curve, *F Units on the Mountain, *ALCOs on
the Curve, *Atop the Mountain, *Conemaugh & Johnstown,
*Pittsburgh, *The PRR in the Midwest, *Notre Dame Football Specials,
*Western Terminals, *Pennsy People. The “Volume 1”
designation implies that future volumes are anticipated. (128
pages, book, obtained from the St. Louis County Library)
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Randall,
W. David & Ross, William M. (1988). The Official Pullman – standard
library, vol. 4 Pennsylvania Railroad. Godfrey, IL:
Railway Production Classics.
This volume of the Official Pullman – Standard Library covers the
Pullman cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It presents
schematic drawings, including exterior side and overhead interior
views, of PRR Pullman passenger cars on foldout 8.5 x 24 inch
pages. The side views are rendered in HO scale and include no
measurements or labels. The overhead interior drawings are
rendered in O scale and include very detailed labeling, measurements
and other information. However the quality of the labeled
drawings is so poor that it is very difficult to decipher the
information. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the book
is the captioned black-and-white photographs of the exterior and
numerous detailed interior views of master rooms, single and double
bedrooms, drawing rooms, lounge areas, barber rooms, buffet lounge
areas, bar lounge areas, secretaries’ rooms, toilet and sink rooms,
porter’s stations, and other areas. Also included is a
25-page “Mechanical Details” section that provides numerous photographs
with lengthy captions of the construction and mechanics of the Pullman
cars. In addition to the construction photographs detailed
photos and information about the trucks and the air conditioning and
electrical systems used on Pullman cars is included. An index
by PRR Numbers and by car names is provided at the back of the book,
and a few black-and-white PRR advertisements are reproduced.
Other volumes of The Official Pullman – Standard Library
cover the Santa Fe (v. 1), the New York Central (v. 2), the Great
Northern-Northern Pacific-SP & S (v. 3), Southern Pacific
prewar cars (v. 5), Southern Pacific postwar cars (v. 6), Southeast
railroads (v.7), Rock Island (v. 8), Chicago & North Western
(v.9), and Northeast railroads (v.10). (165 pages, book,
obtained from Frostburg State University Library)
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Rau, William H.; Van
Horne, John C.; & Drelick, Eileen E. (2002). Traveling the
Pennsylvania Railroad: the photographs of William H. Rau. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press in cooperation with the Library
Company of Philadelphia. (Note:
edited by John C. Van Horne with Eileen E. Drelick; essays by Kenneth Finkel,
Mary Panzer, and John R. Stilgoe).
This remarkable book presents a selection of 86 stunning photographs
from the 463 plates comprising the William H. Rau Collection of
Pennsylvania Railroad Photographs, which are held by the
Library Company of Philadelphia. Rau was a preeminent Philadelphia
photographer in the 1890s who was commissioned by the Pennsylvania
Railroad to “photographically” document the routes of the railroad.
Eventually Rau mounted 463 photographs, mostly large-format 18-by-22-inch albumen
prints, in albums titled “Pennsylvania Rail Road Scenery.” Most of the
photographs were taken in 1891 and 1893. Van Horne states in the book’s
introduction, “Photography afforded to the railroad the means of introducing
Americans to the beauty and vastness of their country, and to the advantages of travel
by train…” The PRR displayed many of the photographs at the 1893
World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, in its stations, hotel lobbies,
departments stores, and published them in promotional publications. These
photographs present views of the PRR physical plant and equipment as well as the
towns and scenery along the tracks. The book presents the photographs
in the following galleries: *Main Line from New York to Philadelphia; *Main
Line from Philadelphia to Harrisburg; *Main Line from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh;
*Schuylkill Division, Northern Central Railway, and Belvidere-Delaware Division.
In the book’s introduction Van Horne provides background information on William H.
Rau and his commission from the PRR, the technical aspects of Rau’s work for the
PRR, and the history of the collection. Essays by Kenneth Finkel, Mary
Panzer, and John Stilgoe address the life and work of William H. Rau and information about
railroad photography. An inventory of the entire William H. Rau
Collection and a bibliography of William H. Rau’s Writing, compiled by William S.
Johnson, are also included in this book. These photographs are vivid,
picturesque, and beautiful in addition to being informative. The cogent
captions for each photograph help the reader to know exactly where and what they are
viewing. In a pamphlet entitled Railroad Photography
(Philadelphia: William H. Rau, 1891-92) Rau wrote “ The photographs in the
‘Pennsylvania Railroad Scenery’ series constitute the most striking and beautiful views to be
had on the lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad in this State, the subjects
being specially selected because of their picturesqueness and
interest.” I totally agree. Van Horne should be commended for his
excellent work of selecting the photographs and producing this book. (260
pages, book).
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Rench,
Walter Freeman. (1921). Roadway
and track. New
York: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Co.
(See the 3rd
edition below for description.)
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Rench, Walter Freeman. (1923). Roadway and track (2nd edition).
New York: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Co.
(See the 3rd edition) below for description.)
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Rench, Walter Freeman. (1946). Roadway
and track (3rd edition). New York: Simmons-Boardman Publishing Co.
Rench was a member of the American Railway Engineering Association and
a former PRR supervisor with 25 years of PRR services in the
engineering and maintenance departments. This book presents a
PRR review of technical information on the construction and maintenance
of roadbed and track. He includes chapters on right of way,
drainage, vegetation for banks, economics of roadway machines, labor
saving methods and devices, tools and their uses, track obstruction,
machinery and equipment, rail repair and inspection, maintenance of
yards and terminals, and more. May photographs, charts, and
diagrams are used. (350 pages, book, examined at the Library
of Congress)
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Roberts,
Charles S. (1997). Triumph
I: Altoona to Pitcairn, 1846-1996. Baltimore:
Barnard, Roberts and Co.
Roberts, a journalist, comes from a B&O family and has
previously written several publications about the B&O including
Sand Patch/Clash of Titans, which details the competition between the
B&O and the PRR in western Pennsylvania. Triumph I is
the first volume in a series that is planned to cover the history of
the entire Pennsylvania Railroad. In Triumph I,
Roberts, with reader/researcher assistance from Gary E. Schlerf,
attempts the monumental task of detailing the awesome history of what
was perhaps the PRR's most storied division, the Pittsburgh
Division. The book begins with four relatively short chapters
(totaling 48 pages) covering the economic, social and political issues
contributing to the development and growth of the PRR.
Chapter one actually begins with the European settlement of eastern
North America and the western migration that ensued. Chapter
four covers the Allegheny Portage Railroad. Chapter five,
“The East Slope - West Altoona to Gallitzin”, presents a
ninety-nine-page look at the engineering feats, including the Horseshoe
Curve, required to hoist the PRR over the Allegheny
Mountains. Chapter six, “The West Slope - Gallitzin to
Johnstown”, presents information about the places, both man-made and
nature-made, and the PRR installations on the western slope of the
Alleghenies in eighty-nine pages. Chapter seven and eight,
“The Gaps - Johnstown to Torrance” and “Rip Rap - Torrance to Pitcairn”
respectively, complete this detailed look at the Pittsburgh Division in
eighty-seven pages. Chapter nine presents a short 1945 "Study
of Train Operations" outlining the movement of freight trains between
Pitcairn and Altoona on April 6th of that year. Next, Roberts
presents a forty-nine-page "Color Journey" with color photographs, some
from the 1950s and 1960s and many from the 1990s, of locations and
installations along the Pittsburgh Division. Roberts'
journalistic, opinionated, anecdotal writing style along with his
frequent comparisons to the B&O and the lack of source
documentation in this work has been criticized. In addition,
numerous inaccuracies have been alleged especially in the photograph
descriptions. However the book is entertaining and its
numerous (over 600) photographs, maps, track charts, and other
illustrations, many of which were not widely available previously, make
a significant contribution. Robert S. McGonigal's review of
this book published in Trains Magazine (February 1998) appropriately
concludes, "As a comprehensive visual record of the Pittsburgh
Division, this work is without peer." (399 pages, book,
obtained from Frostburg State University Library)
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Roberts, Charles S.
& Messer, David W. (2003). Triumph VI: Philadelphia, Columbia,
Harrisburg to Baltimore and Washington, DC, 1827-2003. Baltimore: Barnard,
Roberts and Co.
Not yet annotated.
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Roberts, Charles S. & Messer,
David W. (2004). Triumph VII: Harrisburg to the Lakes,
Wilkes-Barre, Oil City and Red Bank, 1827-2004. Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts
& Co.
Not yet annotated.
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Roberts, Charles S. & Messer, David W. (2006). Triumph VIII:
Pittsburgh. 1749-2006. Baltimore: Barnard, Roberts and Co.
Not yet annotated.
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Rosenbaum, Joel, & Gall, Tom. (1988). The
Broadway Limited. Piscataway, NJ: Railpace Company, Inc.
Rosenbaum and Gallo present an attractive and interesting tribute to
the Pennsy's, upscale, all-Pullman, passenger service between New York
and Chicago. They begin with the early history of PRR New
York to Chicago sleeper service including the New York and Chicago
Limited in 1881 and the Pennsylvania Limited in 1887, which some
railroad historians refer to as the predecessor of the Broadway
Limited. Then they discuss the 1902 births of the
Pennsylvania Special and the NYC's Twentieth Century Limited.
In 1912 the Pennsylvania Special name was changed to The Broad Way
Limited and the rivalry with the Central's Limited lasted until the
late 1950s. The Broad Way "referred to the PRR's broad right
of way over which the train traveled". However the newspapers
began spelling it Broadway and that name was soon adopted by the
PRR. The book presents an enjoyable history of the Broadway
with informative text and numerous (over 140) black-and-white and color
photographs and illustrations. Promotional illustrations,
timetables, maps, and drawings help provide a description of the
Broadway both inside and out over the years. See also: Welsh
(1999). (96 pages, bibliography, book)
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Rosenberger, Homer Tope. (1975). The
Philadelphia and Erie Railroad: its place in American economic history.
Potomac, MD: The Fox Hills Press.
The Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company was authorized by the legislature of
Pennsylvania in 1837 and surveying began in 1838, but construction was
postponed until 1852. The legislature changed the name of the company
in 1861 to the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad Company. This rail
connection between Sunbury and the Erie Harbor was basically completed by
1864 and was expected to bring significant financial benefits to Pennsylvania
and especially to Philadelphia. However, several factors adversely
affected the realization of those benefits and the growth and
prosperity of the company. One of those factors was the
construction and rise of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company with its connection of
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and beyond. In 1862 the Pennsylvania Railroad
gained control of the Philadelphia and Erie through a 999-year lease and loaned the P
and E the funds to complete the railroad. This provided the
Pennsylvania with an important feeder and enhancement to its Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Washington, Erie and Buffalo rail net. The PRR later absorbed the
Philadelphia and Erie in 1907 terminating the P and E's corporate existence.
Rosenberger focused in detail on the Philadelphia and Erie's political,
organizational, and especially financial struggles. He did not present a very
benevolent portrait of the Pennsylvania Railroad when discussing its exploitative
control of the P and E. However, he acknowledged that the
Pennsylvania's relationship with the P and E kept the P and E away from the
Pennsylvania's competitors and helped the PRR gain a significant advantage in meeting
transportation/trade needs in Pennsylvania and
beyond. Rosenberger stated, "In brief, the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad was an important
factor in the growth of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company into a
powerful corporation." The book includes 27 chapters and
more than 100 illustrations. Nine appendixes provide the following
information: 1.The text of the 1937 act to incorporate the Sunbury and Erie Railroad; 2. A
list of other acts of the Assembly of Pennsylvania related to the P and E; 3. P
and E trackage in 1907; 4. Construction dates and track miles by road
sections; 5. Elevations, distances, and grades on the Sunbury and Erie; 6. Volume of freight and
average cost and earnings per ton mile on the P and E 1879-1906. 7. A list of
bond issues including dates, interest rates, dollars authorized, and type of
bonds; 8. P and E net earnings and capitalization 1865-1905 at 5-year
intervals; 9. A list of the presidents of the P and E 1837-1907 - Note that Samuel
Vaughan Merrick (previously the first president of the Pennsylvania) was P and E
president, February 23, 1856 through December 1857. The
book also contains a chronology of major P and E events, a lengthy bibliography,
and a detailed subject index. This book is extremely detailed and presents
much valuable information to those who are willing to invest the time to digest it.
(748 pages, book, obtained from the University of Missouri - St. Louis Libraries)
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Schafer,
Mike & Solomon, Brian. (1997). Pennsylvania Railroad.
Qsceola, WI: Motorbooks International.
This first book in the publisher’s Railroad Color History series
provides a very interesting and cogent brief history of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. The authors acknowledge that their
work in no way presents a comprehensive history of the PRR.
However the work does provide an historical overview of basic
information about the railroad for the armchair historian or PRR
enthusiast. This attractive book includes numerous color
photographs and informative text that convey to the reader the story of
the once mighty Pennsy, from its beginnings in the mid-1800s through
its glory years in the early 1900s to its twilight years in the 1950s
and 1960s. In addition the authors have provided three
chapters covering the PRR's vast steam, electric, and diesel locomotive
fleet. The book ends with a few pages on "The PRR Today"
which describe where PRR road beds, shops, and stations are still in
use, as well as museums that focus on the PRR such as the Railroad
Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg and the Railroaders' Memorial
Museum in Altoona. An index is also included at the back, but
no list of references is provided. (128 pages, book)
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Scherb, Jeff. (2002). Trackside on the
Pennsylvania: Standard Plans of the Standard Railroad of the World -
Structures, Bridges, Signals and Signs. Aurora, CO:
Highlands Station, Inc.
Scherb presents
scaled-down drawings of the standard small structures, bridges, signals
and signs that would have been found trackside on the Pennsylvania
Railroad. While the drawings may be of interest to
historians, model railroaders are likely to be the primary user of this
volume. The drawings were produced with Microsoft Visio 2002
and they are very detailed and accurately labeled, including
measurements and sufficient information for modelers to create and add
realistic detail to their PRR right-of-way and model railroad
operations. Scherb stated in the introduction, "Most of these
items are also simple modeling projects, and many can fit into the 'one
evening' category." Most of Scherb's drawings were redrawn
from original Pennsylvania Railroad standard plans, photographs, and
other sources because few original structures remain. He
cautions that every attempt was made to ensure that the drawings are
accurate, but it is likely that some drawings have minor deviations
from the exact prototype dimensions. The drawings are
organized in four chapters. Structures
includes drawings dating from 1895 through 1914 of passenger shelters,
watch boxes, tool houses, signal cabins, water tanks, passenger and
freight platforms, and more. Bridges and Culverts
includes drawings dating from 1909 through 1925 of concrete arch
culverts and bridges, timber trestle bridges, a timber coal trestle,
and a concrete coal trestle. Signals
begins with seven pages presenting 14 different explanations of signals
rules followed by drawings for signals position lights, signal bridges,
markers for switches and signals, end of block and fouling point signs,
a block limit signal and sign, a distant switch indicator, a color
light flag station, blades for semaphore signals, smashboards, a
telephone box, and wooden mail cranes dating from 1894 through
1949. Signs presents drawings of
prototypes dating from 1889 though 1952. Included
are a wide variety of common signs including grade crossings, stations,
trespassing, mile and section markers, and signs to identify
physical structures such as bridges. In addition, a chart
showing the Pennsylvania's standard letters and numbers is
included. Each chapter begins with a two-page written
introduction. See also: Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, Office of Engineer of Maintenance of Way (1901) Maintenance of way plans:
containing plans approved as standard, also those in use but not fully
recognized as standards and Smith, Harold T. (1967) Pennsylvania Railroad standard
maintenance of way plans. (95 pages, book, obtained from The Library of Congress)
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Scherb, Jeff. (2004).
Trackside on the Pennsylvania, vol. 2: Standard Plans of the Standard Railroad of
the World. Aurora, CO: Highlands Station, Inc.
Not yet annotated.)
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Sherry, Allan. (1979). Pennsylvania
Railroad steam locomotive final roster. Riverdale,
NY: Author.
Sherry's compilation of PRR steam locomotives lists each locomotive in
order by its engine number. Data is presented for each
locomotive in columns indicating the class, builder, date of
construction & construction number, boiler pressure,
re-numbering & date, conversion & date, whether in
service after 1938, termination of service date, and
disposition. (56 pages, book)
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Smith, Harold T.
(1967). Pennsylvania
Railroad standard
maintenance of way plans. Clifton, VA: Boynton
& Associates.
The cover title of this book is, 57 Plans Compiled in the Office of
Chief Engineer of Maintenance of Way for the Pennsylvania
Railroad. Smith states in the introduction that he took these
plans from a “beat-up loose-leaf binder” with “M.W.61. Standard
Maintenance of Way Plans” on the cover. The binder, which he
discovered in a neighbor’s collection, contained several hundred
plans. The 57 schematic drawings included in this book are
the same size (6.25 inches x 9 inches) as those in the loose-leaf
binder, which Smith supposes were reduced from the original blue
prints. The diagrams in this book were selected because of
their potential use to modelers and railroad fans. They are
dated from 1902 to 1918 and include a wide variety of
structures. Standard four track roadways, retaining walls, 85
& 125 pound rails and splices, road crossing grades, turnouts
& crossovers, passenger & freight platforms, timber
coal trestles, cattle guards, tool houses, passenger shelters, station
signs, signal bridges, foundations for turntables, road crossing signs,
steel water tanks, and many other structures are included.
All plans contain detailed labels, measurements, notes, and
dates. See also: Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, Office of Engineer of Maintenance of Way (1901) Maintenance of way plans:
containing plans approved as standard, also those in use but not fully
recognized as standards and Scherb,
Jeff (2002) Trackside
on the Pennsylvania: Standard Plans of the Standard Railroad of the
World - Structures, Bridges, Signals and Signs.
(57 pages, book, obtained from Cape May County Library)
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Smith, Harold T. (1973). Pennsylvania
Railroad standard maintenance of way plans. Cossaguna, NY:
Author.
This is a reprint of the 1967 edition. See above.
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Spearman, Frank H. (1904). The
strategy of great railroads. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons.
Spearman presents thirteen essays each addressing a different railroad
system, including the Pennsylvania system, the Vanderbilt Lines (New
York Central), the Union Pacific, the Atchison, the Chicago and
Northwestern, and others. His essay on the Pennsylvania
(pages 23 through 46) briefly discusses some history and development of
the Pennsylvania system, but focuses on management strategies to
effectively address demands for passenger and freight railroad service
which experienced enormous growth in traffic during the period of
general prosperity from 1901 to 1906. His interesting
treatment highlights not only the material and financial
accomplishments of the Pennsylvania, but also its innovative and
beneficent approach to treatment of its employees. He also
illuminates the personality and skills of the Pennsylvania's seventh
president, Alexander Johnston Cassatt, who served from 1899 through
1906. (287 pages, book, obtained from South Dakota State
University Library)
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Staufer, Alvin F. (Ed.). (1960). Steam
and electric locomotive diagrams of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Medina, OH: Author.
Staufer explains in an introductory paragraph that the PRR did not
issue bound locomotive diagram books, as did many other railroad
companies. Instead the Pennsy distributed individual
blueprints to its division motive power departments. Staufer
presents about 95 steam and electric locomotive blueprints and about 15
early diesel blueprints in this 10.5 X 4 inch paperback. The
drawings show measurements as well as some technical specifications
such as steam pressures and weights. (111 pages, book)
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Staufer, Alvin F., Edson, William D., &
Harley, E. Thomas. (1993). Pennsy power
III: 1847-1968, steam, electric, MU's, motor cars, diesels, cars,
buses, trucks, airplanes, boats, art. Medina, OH:
Staufer.
Staufer's third volume in the Pennsy Power series is a very ambitious
and, to me, the most interesting of the three books. Volume
one covered steam and electric locomotives from 1900-1962.
Volume two focused on multiple units and diesel locomotives.
Volume three contains lengthy chapters on steam, electric, and diesel
locomotives. In addition, it completes the depiction of the
diverse types of power owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad by covering
pre-1900 locomotives, and by devoting 66 pages to passenger, freight
and work cars, and 62 pages to buses, trucks, airplanes and
boats. Staufer reminds us in his introduction that the PRR
was a total transportation system with the largest floating fleet in
America, a large trucking (both highway and piggyback) service, two
major air services, and the Greyhound bus company. Staufer
shows the reader this total transportation company through 1,300
captioned black-and-white photographs taken by a long list of
photographers and through numerous brief segments of informative text
written by Staufer and William D. Edson. Interspersed among
the photographs are many charts, drawings, diagrams, and
maps. In addition, Staufer presents 19 pages of PRR artwork
at the end of volume three, including 16 full-page color reproductions
of art by Grif Teller, Ted Xaras, Craig Staufer, Ron Johnston, and
himself. Staufer claims there is no duplication of text or
pictures in these three Pennsy Power volumes, and, together, they
provide a remarkable picture of what was a remarkable
railroad. (512 pages, book)
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Staufer, Alvin F., & Pennypacker, Bert. (1968).
Pennsy power II: steam, diesel
and electric locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Medina, OH. Staufer.
This book, the second of three Pennsy Power installments by Staufer and
Pennypacker, was produced as the mighty "P" Co. took its last
breath. The authors admit in the forward of this book that
they are "steam devotees and sentimentalists at heart", and the book
includes a lengthy chapter on steam locomotives. Although
these locomotives were covered in the first installment, this volume
provides additional glimpses of mighty steam locomotives during their
glory years and then during their waning years when they worked
side-by-side with diesels. It also includes a chapter showing
the continued importance of electric locomotives on the Pennsylvania
during the company's later years. In addition, the book
presents a thirty-page chapter covering the bi-directional
multiple-unit passenger cars that became so important during the 1950s
and 1960s, and then moves on to the diesel age. The diesel
chapter provides a photo-roster of diesel locomotives updated to July
1, 1967. The chapter is organized by general type (switchers,
road-switchers, passenger, freight) and by builders' names and
horsepower under each general type. The photo captions
include a general description of the unit, the PRR road classification
and road numbers, basic mechanical specifications, and mechanical
changes, renumberings and retirements. Often schematic
drawings of locomotives are included. Pennypacker provides
introductory text for each chapter and Staufer did the layout, editing,
art work, and photograph captions. This volume provides a
useful picture of PRR locomotives especially showing the transition
from steam to diesel. Over 540 black-and-white photographs of
locomotives are included. In addition, some useful tabular
information is presented, including a table listing the PRR motive
power as of July 1, 1947, and a March 1, 1966 list of PRR electric
multiple-unit passenger cars. (351 pages, book)
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Staufer, Alvin F., Pennypacker, Bert, &
Flattley, Martin. (1962). Pennsy power:
steam and electric locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1900-1957.
Carrollton, OH: Standard Printing & Publishing Co.
This is the first of three Pennsy Power books by Staufer, and it
presents a very informative and fascinating look at Pennsy's steam and
electric locomotives. Staufer did all layout, production,
organization, picture selection, caption writing and art
work. Pennypacker helped with text writing and Flattley
helped with the research for this volume. The forward
explains the time span was selected because it represented the "Golden
Years of Steam Railroading" when most of the significant locomotives
were built. The cut-off year, 1957, was the last year of service for
steam. However, some electric data were added to update that
section to 1962. Each chapter covers a specific engine class
and includes text about the history and design of the locomotive, brief
representative technical specifications, and numerous captioned
photographs (more than 700 in all). In addition,
Staufer has included many extra attractions such as photographs and
information about the Altoona shops and the Horseshoe Curve, diagrams
of the Pennsy's famous Belpaire boiler, a 1959 map of Pennsy's
electrified lines, and 33 small black-and-white reproductions of PRR
calendars. (320 pages, book)
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Stroup, John P. (1996). Pennsylvania-Reading
Seashore Lines: in color. Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books.
Stroup’s book does not present a substantial amount of new information
about the PRSL. Only two pages of text are devoted to a
review of the line’s history. However this attractive book
packages some very interesting color photographs of PRSL equipment and
facilities taken during the 1950s and 1960s. Lengthy and
informative captions accompany photographs that show PRSL trains and
facilities at various locations including Shore tower, Jersey tower,
Divide interlocking, Jordan block station, Collingswood, West
Haddonfield, Haddonfield, Kirkwood, Lindenwold, West Berlin, Bishops
Bridge, Ancora, Winslow, Atlantic City, Ocean City, Wildwood, Cape May,
Camden, Haddon Heights, Laurel Springs, Williamstown Junction, Brown,
Gloucester, Brooklawn, Glassboro, Vineland, Millville, Carneys Point,
and others. The photographs include Stroup’s own work as well
as the work of Ron Baile, Will Coxey, Joe Grella, Al Holtz, Ed Kelsey,
Frank Kozempel, Bob Long, Dick Short, Karl Then, and Bill and Steve
Tilden. About 215 photographs are included providing a
description of the PRSL’s freight and passenger operations.
In addition, much information is presented from PRSL timetables and
promotional brochures, and maps (many produced by Stroup).
The book also includes information about Atlantic City race trains, the
terminal points for PRSL train number series, the PRSL’s customer
relationship with the Baldwin Locomotive Works, a diesel locomotive
roster, and an electric car roster. Stroup refers the reader
to By Rail to the Boardwalk by Gladulich for more detailed historical
information. This a very enjoyable collection of
PRSL photographs. (128 pages, book, obtained from The State
Historical Society of Wisconsin)
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Sweetland, David R. (1992). Pennsy
steam years. (Vol. 1). Edison, NJ:
Morning Sun Books, Inc.
Sweetland has created a fun book that depicts the Pennsy's steam
locomotive fleet through more than 180 marvelous full-color
photographs. The photographs present a cross-section of
Pennsy steam power captured from 1942 to 1957. The author
started working for the PRR at the Altoona works in 1959 when "the
steam giants were all retired and some were still sleeping at East
Altoona", and this book ably serves as his tribute to the Pennsy's
mighty steam machines. The book has only a few pages of
straight text, which presents a brief history of the Pennsylvania's
steam locomotive building accomplishments with special emphasis, of
course, on the Altoona works. Information about
each class of Pennsy steam locomotives is presented including brief
technical data, the years of construction, and the number of units
built. However, beginning on page 9 the photographs and
interesting captions tell most of the tale. The show begins
with views of steam muscle on the Long Island RR and the
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. The action continues
through Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Altoona, Hollidaysburg, the Horseshoe
Curve and then on to Bellevue and Sandusky, OH, St. Louis and Chicago
with other trips to Shamokin, Wilkes-Barre, Elmira, NY, Hagerstown, MD,
and other locations. Adding to the charm of this book are
numerous full-color illustrations taken from PRR advertisements,
timetables, and other promotional materials that are interspersed among
the photographs. This is volume 1 of several Pennsy all-color
books produced by Morning Sun Books. (128 pages, book)
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Sweetland, David R., & Yanosey,
Robert J. (1992). PRR color guide to freight
and passenger equipment. Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books, Inc.
Most railroad photographic works are devoted to the motive power end of
the trains. However Sweetland and Yanosey point out that a
large portion of any railroad's investment is devoted to its freight
and passenger cars. The PRR had the largest single-ownership
fleet of freight and passenger cars in the United States. For
example, in 1962 the Pennsy owned 3,546 passenger cars and 139,356
freight cars, and many of these cars were developed and built (or
modified or rebuilt) in the PRR shops of Altoona or
Hollidaysburg. This work presents over 320 captioned color
photographs of Pennsy freight and passenger cars, "reproducing as
nearly as possible the actual colors of significant classes of this
huge fleet during the post war years..." The photographs show
the color schemes, decal placements, numbering, and the effects of the
elements and years of use on the equipment. The work is
organized as Pennsy organized its equipment, by a primary class letter:
B for baggage cars, BM for baggage and mail cars, D for dining cars, M
for mail cars, P for passenger cars, Z for Business cars, F for flat
cars, G for gondola cars, H for hopper cars, K for stock cars, R for
refrigerator cars, X for box cars, and N for cabin cars. See
also: Fischer (1996). (128 pages, book)
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Trostel,
Scott D. (1987). Bradford
the railroad town: a railroad town history of Bradford, Ohio.
Fletcher, OH: Cam-Tech Publishing.
Bradford, Ohio was a railroad town for 130 years. Like many
railroad towns it came into existence and grew to meet the needs of the
railroad, and it suffered severe economic and social depression when
the railroad abandoned it between 1929 and 1931. Located in
west central Ohio, approximately 20 miles east of the Indiana line and
30 miles north-west of Dayton, a small village called Union City
Junction was formed in 1854 around a timber camp to supply ties, bridge
timbers, and firewood to the Columbus Piqua & Indiana
Railroad. By 1863-64 the Columbus & Indianapolis
Railroad had taken over the CP&I and was joined at Union City
Junction by the Richmond & Covington Railroad from the
south. The Columbus & Indianapolis purchased the
R&C and consolidated the Indiana Central to from the Columbus
& Indianapolis Central Railway late in 1864. In 1866
a post office was established and the name of the growing village was
changed to Bradford Junction. The Pennsylvania's relationship
with the town began in the late 1860's when C&IC construction
from Union City to Logansport was financed by the Pennsylvania
Company. In 1868 consolidation brought the C&IC and
the Chicago and Great Eastern together to form the Columbus Chicago and
Indiana Central Railway. Bradford's importance to the
railroad was recognized by the relocation of the terminal, roundhouse
and shops from Piqua to Bradford. In 1869 the Pennsylvania
Company formed the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway Company
and leased the CC&IC. This book provides an
interesting look at life in this Pennsylvania Railroad town including
much informative text and 120 photographs, illustrations and
maps. The focus is on the relationship between the railroad
and the citizens in the town. Chapters like "Life of a
Railroad Man" and "Iron Horses and Men of Steel" reveal the hard and
dangerous work required of railroad employees. Numerous
railroad wrecks and several fires and discussed. Also covered
are the Railroad's many economic, social, and service contributions to
the town, such as the railroad YMCA and the railroad fire
department. In 1925 W.W. Atterbury, PRR President, advanced
the idea that the number of outlying terminals and the yarding of
engines and crews should be consolidated to increase the train speeds
between Columbus, Logansport, and Indianapolis. By 1931
practically all Bradford operations had been discontinued except the
storage of dead locomotives and freight cars, and only eleven people
were employed in the whole terminal complex. Prior to that
time Bradford was practically a one-industry town, a railroad
town. The closing of the railroad facilities was a
devastating blow. The book also includes a "Periodic Review
of Passenger Train Service" departing Bradford between 1859 to 1959, a
chronology of railroads operating through Bradford, a list of
locomotives used through Bradford for selected years from 1852 to 1957,
a partial record of railroad injuries and deaths within Bradford
proper, a short bibliography, an index, and two folded maps of Bradford
and the railroad terminal area. (152 pages, book)
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Volkmer,
William D. (1991). Pennsy
electric years. Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books, Inc.
Volkmer presents a very attractive and very interesting photographic
description of the state of the PRR electrification in the last ten of
so years of the Pennsy (1958-1968). During this period he was
an employee of the railroad's Mechanical Department, and this
experience allowed him to add many personal observations and
remembrances to the introductory text of each photographic
layout. Volkmer presents a brief chronology of important
dates in PRR electrification, but does not attempt to provide any
detailed history, which has been previously published in several other
books. This book consists of many one or two-page color
photographic layouts each with brief introductory text by Volkmer and
captions for each photograph. Volkmer states, "it was
non-GG-1 locos that gave the spice and flavor to the Pennsy electric
scene,” and the photographs in this book exemplify that spice with
numerous photographs of P-5a, E-44, FF-2, B-1 yard goats, and other
electric locomotives in addition to GG-1s. The photographs
and text illustrate numerous Pennsy electrified settings such as
Merion, PA, Sunnyside Yard in Queens, NY, the Hudson River tunnels,
North Philadelphia, 30th Street Station, Trenton, NJ, and several
branches such as Greenville Branch, Princeton Branch, Chestnut Hill
Branch, and others. The book includes more than 180 quality
color photographs. R.J. (Bob) Yanosey contributed
the cover design, layout and typesetting to this book. (128
pages, book)
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Volkmer, William D. (1994). PRR:
Hudson to horseshoe. Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books,
Inc.
In PRR: Hudson to Horseshoe, Volkmer repeats his previous successful
style of high-quality color photographs accompanied by interesting and
informative text. This is another appealing photographic
description of the Pennsylvania during its last decade when the company
was struggling with equipment obsolescence concurrent with the end of
steam, government regulation, and fierce competition from highways and
airports. This book focuses on the area between the Hudson
River and the Allegheny Mountains, which offered a great variety of
types of operations, equipment, scenery, and motive power.
Volkmer begins his photographic journey with Pennsy tugboats on the
Hudson River and travels west to the Alleghenies and the Horseshoe
Curve. As he did in Pennsy Electric Years, Volkmer used his
experience in the PRR Maintenance of Equipment Department to add
substance to the brief text in the form of personal knowledge and
recollections. Of course, the many superb photographs (over
200) are the main attraction in this book. R.J. (Bob) Yanosey
contributed the layout and typesetting to this book. (128
pages, book)
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Ward, James A. (1980).
J. Edgar Thomson: Master of the Pennsylvania.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Ward presents a
biography of Thomson's business and professional life principally based
upon surviving letters that Thomson sent to others. After
being chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad Company, Thomson became
chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1847 and then
served as its president from 1852 until his death in 1874.
Thomson guided the PRR through the Civil War and then through the
period of rapid growth during the great industrial boom after the
war. He assembled a very talented management team, including
Andrew Carnegie and A.J. Cassatt. This biography does not
illuminate much about Thomson's inner feelings or personal
life. However as Robert E. Carlson states in his
review in the September 1981 Journal of American History, "Ward has
produced a first-rate biography, a pleasure to read, and a model for
biographers of business and industrial leaders to imitate."
(265 pages, bibliography, book)
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Warner, Paul T. (1959). Locomotives
of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1834-1924. Chicago:
Owen Davies.
This book is a collection of three articles by Warner which were originally
published as Motive Power Development, Pennsylvania Railroad System in
three issues of Baldwin Locomotives in April, July, and October,
1924. The first article traces the development of the
Pennsylvania's motive power up to 1868, when the company adopted
standard locomotive designs. The second article covered the
period from 1868 to 1898, and the third article discusses locomotive
development from 1898 to 1924. Warner obtained much data and
many photographs from the PRR's Motive Power Department and from the
Baldwin Locomotive Works. He also consulted several published
books and articles including, those by William B. Sipes, W.B. Wilson,
and C.H. Caruthers. Warner presents black and white
photographs and/or illustrations along with technical data and
narrative regarding each locomotive type or class. Also
included are five photographs of PRR steam power from the 1940s and
1950s. (79 pages, book)
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Watt, William J. (1999). The
Pennsylvania Railroad in Indiana (Railroads past and present). Bloomington,
IN: Indiana University Press.
At the time of publication of this book, Watt was a board member of the
Center for Railroad Photography and Art and a former executive
assistant for Indiana Governor Otis R. Bowen and Lt. Governor Richard
E. Folz. He was also a former administrator for policy at the
Federal Railroad Administration and chaired the state Transportation
Coordinating Board and Indiana Transportation Finance
Authority. In addition he is a former Associated Press writer
and editor, and the book is written in a journalistic style.
Sources are not footnoted in the work, although he provides a
three-page selected bibliography at the end. The book does
not provide much information that is not already available in other
sources. However, it does bring a widely dispersed assortment
of information together for more convenient access by the casual
reader. This book does not provide a great deal of depth, but
it serves as a good basic outline of Pennsylvania Railroad activities
in the Midwest. A large number of pages are used to discuss
the economic, political, social, and technological situations of the
PRR as a whole. Many readers may wish that Watt had provided
more depth regarding PRR history in Indiana and less general coverage
of PRR system history. However, Watt’s stated journalistic
approach makes an appealing and worthwhile contribution regarding the
125 years that the PRR impacted the economic condition of the state of
Indiana. The book consists of thirteen chapters, a selected
bibliography, and an index. It contains 71 black-and-white
photographs, most related to Indiana, and some are very unique and
interesting. In addition numerous other illustrations, many
from PRR promotional materials, and several route maps are
included. This book is part of the publisher’s Railroads Past
and Present series, edited by George Smerk. (192 pages, book,
obtained from the Florida International University Library)
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Wayner, Robert J. (Ed.). (1969).
Pennsy car plans. New York: Wayner Publications.
This is a book of diagrams of Pennsylvania Railroad passenger, freight and
maintenance-of-way cars. According to the introduction, it
presents a selected roster of rolling stock through diagrams reproduced
from existing pre-merger class book tracings. Wayner cautions
that some classes of cars were not represented in the class books and
some diagrams were not in reproducible condition. Other than
the introduction, there is no text in this book. It consists
of ninety-nine, 6.5 X 9.5 inch, pages of car diagrams with measurements
and some technical data included. Passenger cars include both
exterior and interior diagrams. See also: Staufer
(1960). (99 pages, book)
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Wayner, Robert J. (Ed.). (1981). Pennsylvania
Railroad passenger and freight car diagrams. New
York: Wayner Publications.
This book presents schematic drawings of PRR passenger and freight cars on
8.25 x 10.75 inch pages. Each drawing shows exterior (side
and end) views and overhead interior views (for passenger cars) with
measurements. Most include additional information such as car
class, weight, builder, year built (for some), seating capacity (for
passenger), freight capacity (weight and cubic feet), number of rooms
(if appropriate), and other information. Wayner states on the
title page, “The diagrams in this book were selected from all surviving
pre-merger class book tracings. Certain classes of cars were
not represented in the available plans, nor was every tracing in a
reproducible condition.” I agree with Wayner that this book
provides an extensive “panorama of Pennsy rolling stock including some
rare and unusual cars...” Unfortunately the book does not
contain an index or list of the cars or classes of cars it
covers. There is no mention of the 1969 edition in this
book. (103 pages, book, obtained form North Carolina State
University Libraries)
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Wells, Janice Cooper. (1987). The
handsomest building on the road. Salem, OH: J.C.
Wells.
Wells provides a brief history of the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Salem,
Ohio. She begins with a brief railroad history Salem, Ohio,
where railroad lines from Pittsburgh were completed in 1852.
The Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad went on to connect to the Ohio and
Indiana Railroad at Crestline and the Fort Wayne and Chicago
line. These three lines were consolidated in 1856 forming the
Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne, and Chicago, which became part of the
Pennsylvania in 1869. This short, self-published, book
concentrates on the Salem depots, especially the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company's stone depot built in 1892. The book includes a map
of Salem, several photographs, a list of station agents, and a short
bibliography. (54 pages, book, examined at the Library of
Congress)
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Welsh, Joe. (1999). Pennsy
streamliners: the blue ribbon fleet. Waukesha, WI:
Kalmbach Publishing Co.
Welsh presents a very interesting portrayal of the transformation of the
Pennsy’s huge fleet of passenger trains from chunky heavyweight
equipment to streamlined lightweight cars. He covers the
social, economic, demographic, and technological developments that
influenced the transformation, and reveals the challenges faced, and
decisions made, by PRR executives from the mid-thirties through the
Broadway Limited’s last run on December 12, 1967. Of course
the work of industrial designer Raymond Loewy in the development of the
Fleet of Modernism is covered in detail. Loewy had helped
with the redesign of the GG1 electric locomotive and his “distinctive
design touch would be evident from motive power to observation car,
from structures to wastebaskets and, seemingly, everywhere in
between.” Welsh shows Mr. Loewy’s impact on passenger car
design with numerous of interior and exterior photographs and
illustrations of passenger equipment. In addition, Welsh uses
information from company documents to elucidate the thinking of PRR
decision-makers and explain the company’s relationships with carmakers
including Pullman and American Car and Foundry. He also
covers the PRR's relationships with competitors such as the New York
Central. Many passenger train consists spanning many years
are included along with period advertisements and employee
interviews. Welsh provides a fascinating depiction of the
factors that contributed to the development of the Fleet of Modernism
and the postwar Blue Ribbon Fleet and the factors that lead to the
demise of the mighty Pennsy passenger fleet after 20 years of deficit
operations. The following chapters are included: A Fleet of
Modernism, A New Postwar Blue Ribbon Fleet, Through Cars and Trains of
the Blue Ribbon Fleet, Home from the Road: Sunnyside – The Largest
Coach Yard in the World, and The Long Goodbye. The book also
includes a glossary and index. See also: Rosenbaum &
Gall (1988). (160 pages, book, obtained from Multnomah County
Library, Portland, OR)
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Westhaeffer, Paul J. (1979). History
of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, 1835-1919. Washington, D.C.:
National Railway Historical Society.
Westhaeffer presents a very interesting history of this small railroad that had
long ties to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Cumberland Valley
lies in south central Pennsylvania, extending from the Susquehanna
River near Harrisburg to the Potomac at Williamsport MD. The
Cumberland Valley Railroad came into existence after being promoted as
a line that would connect, not to a proposed Baltimore line, but rather
to a Pennsylvania mainline from Philadelphia. By late 1839
the CVRR had trains running between Chambersburg and Harrisburg, a
distance of 104 miles. The CVRR connected to the
Franklin Railroad, which ran between Chambersburg to Hagerstown, MD by
1841. Over the years the Pennsylvania Railroad provided
varying degrees of support to the CVRR and the two railroads enjoyed a
mutually beneficial relationship until their merger in March
1919. Thomas Alexander Scott, Vice President of the PRR from
1860 to 1847 and President of the PRR from 1874 to 1880, was also
Director of the Cumberland Valley Railroad from 1860 to1880.
Moorhead Cowell Kennedy, Vice President of the Cumberland Valley
Railroad from 1892 to 1913 and President of the CVRR from 1913 to 1919,
served as Vice President of the PRR from 1919 to 1932.
Westhaeffer addresses the railroad’s legal identity, engineering,
construction, operations, traffic, and finance. He also
covers the impact of nationwide economic and political factors
including its status as a component of the Pennsylvania
System. In addition he addresses the railroad’s relationship
with the communities it served and provides insight into the daily
lives of the railroaders. Although the book does not contain
a formal bibliography, chapter notes are provided to identify source
materials. Westhaeffer states that he used official company
records, coverage provided by several newspapers of the 1820 to 1920
period, and a great many interviews of veteran railroaders and
others. Many illustrations and photographs (approximately
200) add to the value of this work. Half of the photographs
are from the collection of Charles L. Pague of Shippensburg and include
many taken by Clyde Laughlin of Shippensburg. The chapters
covering the Civil War and post-Civil War years are particularly
interesting. Appendices include a locomotive roster, a list
of directors and officers, a graph of traffic growth, and a graph of
receipts and expenditures. The book also includes and
index. (339 pages, book, obtained from the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin)
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Westing, Fred. (1978). Penn
Station: Its tunnels and side rodders. Seattle:
Superior Publishing Company.
Westing's book consists of two parts. The first 117 pages are
a reprint of William Couper's History of the Engineering Construction
and Equipment of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's New York Terminal
and Approaches (see Couper, William, 1912). This reprint
excludes only 14 pages of advertisements that were printed at the end
of Couper's original publication. The remaining 66
pages are Westing's contribution which describe the development
of Penny's electric traction with special emphasis on it's
DD1 and L5 class jack-shaft, side-rod drive electric
locomotives. Numerous photographs and illustrations are
included in Westing's material. (184 pages, book)
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Westing, Fred. (1974). Pennsy
steam and semaphores. Seattle: Superior Publishing
Company.
Westing displays his love and knowledge of steam locomotives in this
publication. He states that his primary objective in this
book is to present many rare vintage photographs of Pennsy train scenes
from the period between 1890 up to the late 1920s. He
accomplishes this objective by including over 270 black-and-white
photographs and numerous illustrations each accompanied by informative
in-depth captions. Passenger train scenes and locomotives
predominate, with only one twenty-eight-page chapter covering freight
equipment. His "Facts and Figures" chapter includes much
technical information about Pennsy locomotives including coal
consumption records and excerpts from a Pennsy report regarding the
effects on the engine crew of long distance runs of over 200 miles in
one direction. Westing's nine-page "Signals and Safety"
chapter addresses the Pennsy's automatic block system of
signals. He also includes very interesting brief biographical
and photographic essays on the careers of two PRR locomotive engineers,
Martin H. Lee and Oliver P. Keller, who had been featured previously in
Westing's Apex of the Atlantics. This book is an excellent
source of information about PRR steam power prior to the
1930s. (187 pages, book)
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Westing, Fred. (1982, c1974). Pennsy
steam and semaphores. New York: Bonanza Books.
This is a reprint of the 1974 edition published by Superior Publishing
Company.)
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Westing, Frederick. (1963). Apex
of the Atlantics. Milwaukee: Kalmbach Publishing Co.
Westing presents the story of the E6s Atlantic (4-4-2) steam
locomotives. In 1914 the Pennsylvania Railroad's Altoona
Works built 80 E6s locomotives for passenger service even though most
railroads of the day believed the 4-4-2 was no longer practical due to
the increased weight of all-steel passenger cars. However the
E6s became classic passenger locomotives for the Pennsy and remained in
use until diesels took over. Westing covers the development
and history of the Atlantics including a chapter about Alfred W. Gibbs,
General Superintendent of Motive Power for the road east of Pittsburgh
from 1903 to 1911 and later the first and only Chief Mechanical
Engineer at PRR's headquarters until his death in 1922.
Westing refers to Gibbs as the "father of the E6". He and the
engineers and workers at the Test Plant in Altoona were responsible for
the development of the "Big E", the high-speed and high-horsepower
Atlantic. Westing's text is supplemented by 116
black-and-white photographs and numerous illustrations and
data. He also presents some human interest material including
his coverage of two locomotives engineers, Martin H. Lee and Oliver P.
Keller, and the inclusion of David P. Morgan's coverage (from the
October 1952 issue of Trains & Travel) of the "Lindbergh
Special", the E6s Atlantic that raced newsreels covering Charles
Lindbergh's return to Washington, DC to New York's Manhattan
Transfer. The E6s delivered the newsreels an hour before
those flown in by the competition. (167 pages, book)
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Wilson, William Bender. (1895). History
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company with plan of organization,
portraits of officials and biographical sketches.
(Vols. I and II). Philadelphia: Henry T. Coats & Company.
This monumental work addresses the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's
system east of Pittsburgh and Erie. Bender provides a "plain
narration of historical facts" describing the incorporation and
organization of the company and the various railroad lines it owned,
leased, or controlled and operated. Volume I
consists of seven chapters: I. Philadelphia to Harrisburg; II.
Harrisburg to Altoona; III. Altoona to Pittsburgh; IV. General Agency,
Philadelphia. D.E.&K. Division. Junction Railroad; V.
Transportation Divisions; VI. The West Jersey and Seashore Railroad,
The Allegheny Valley Railway, and the Cumberland Valley Railroad; and
VII. The Railroad in War Times (Civil War). Volume II adds
three more chapters: VIII. Organization and Biography (biographical
sketches of the present executives); IX. The Jubilee (including
selections from Jubilee celebration addresses); and X. In Memoriam
(biographical sketches and portraits of past PRR leaders).
Wilson states that it took him years to prepare this work, and that he
gathered much of the information from his father who was Secretary of
the Board of Canal Commissioners (Harrisburg, PA) and during his youth
and early manhood from such men as William C. Patterson, William B.
Foster, Jr., and Thomas A,. Scott. (Volume I - 418 pages,
Volume II - 323 pages, book)
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Wilson, William Bender. (1900). General
Superintendents of the Pennsylvania Railroad division.
Philadelphia: The Kensington Press.
Wilson presents a brief history of the position of General
Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Division, which supervised
the active operations of all the sub-departments of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company. He then provides brief biographical
information and photographs of 13 General Superintendents of the
company from 1849 to the beginning of 1900. The following
General Superintendents are covered: John Edgar Thomson (June 8, 1849 -
January 8, 1851), Herman Haupt (January 8, 1851 – November 1, 1858),
Herman J. Lombaert (November 1, 1852 – January 1, 1858), Thomas A.
Scott (January 1, 1858 – April 1, 1860), Enoch Lewis (April 1, 1860 –
January 1, 1866), Edward H. Williams (January 1, 1866 – April 1, 1870),
Alexander J. Cassatt (April 1870 – December 20, 1871, Mr. Cassatt was
then made General Manager of all the PRR lines east of Pittsburgh and
Erie, but he continued performing the General Superintendent duties
until March 1, 1873), George Clinton Gardner (March 1, 1873 – April 1,
1879), Charles E. Pugh (April 1, 1879 – October 1, 1882), Sutherland M.
Prevost (October 1, 1882 – May 1, 1885), Robert E. Pettit (May 1, 1885
– June 1, 1890), Frank E. Sheppard (June 1, 1890 – January 1, 1899),
John M. Wallis (January 1, 1899 - ). Three of these General
Superintendents later became President, i.e., Thomson, Scott, and
Cassatt. (66 pages, book, examined at The Library of Congress)
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Wilson, William Bender. (1902). From
the Hudson to the Ohio: a region of historic, romantic and scenic
interest, and other sketches. Philadelphia:
Kensington Press.
In this book Wilson presents a collection of short essays and
remembrances, about his past experiences and philosophies, and sketches
about some interesting or important people. As may have been
expected, the Pennsylvania Railroad is part of many of the essays and
all the biographical sketches. The book begins with the title
piece, an eight-page description of a trip on the Pennsylvania Railroad
from the Hudson River in New York to the Ohio River in
Pittsburgh. The piece reveals the grandeur, historical
significance, and sensual experience of the environment along the
way. Wilson’s pleasing prose and quotations of
others make the envious of that historic journey. In “The
Telegraph in Peace and War” Wilson tells of his experiences as a
telegraph operator in the 1850s and 1860s. He began as a
messenger boy for the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company.
Later he worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and for the
Military Telegraph Corps during the Civil War. He describes
stretching a silk covered wire from hiding places in the crevices of
decayed trees, tree stumps, and fence rails to partially dismantled
telegraph lines to keep government officials informed about the
war. In “Black Dick” Wilson pays tribute to a man named
Richard who became famous for his unselfish efforts to keep the
travelers at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Harrisburg safe by
running in front of the locomotives to clear people from the
tracks. “Transportation Panels in the Broad Street Station”
describes the work of the famous Austrian sculptor, Karl
Bitter. Wilson devotes 116 pages to biographical/career
sketches of PRR directors, executives, and managers. Included
are three directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad that were appointed
after completion of his History of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1899
(Thomas De Witt Cuyler, Lincoln Godfrey, and James McCrea), a Secretary
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Lewis Neilson), two Assistant
Secretaries (A.J. County and Kane Stovell Green), two Division Freight
Agents (George D. Ogden and Robert C. Wright), and a Company Surgeon
(Dr. William R. Blakeslee). Wilson also presents a brief
declaration of the importance of a freight agent to the
railroad. “…not less than seventy per cent of the revenues
passing into the corporation’s treasury is collected by
them.” He includes sketches of the lives and careers of the
following freight agents: E.E.Zeigler (Pittsburgh), Edwin R. Stewart
(Wilmerding), F.S. Deckert (Johnstown), Abel Lloyd (Ebensburg), A.T.
Heintzelman (Altoona), W.B. Humes (Bellwood), A. Elliott (Huntingdon),
W.W. Fuller (Mount Union), Thomas L. Wallace and W.L. Fry (Harrisburg),
Robert S. Beatty (Buffalo), C.S. Murray (Columbia), E.K. Davis
(Lancaster), F.H Meyers (Philadelphia), William Hammersley (Broad and
Washington Avenue District), Charles C. Kinney (Washington Avenue Wharf
District), D.R. Richardson (Kensington District), Robert L. Franklin
(Germantown Junction), John T. Robb (Pier 19, New York), and W.W. Bowie
(Washington, D.C.). Next, Wilson presents a twenty-six-page
tribute to four men: Edward Miller (1811-1872), Joseph D. Potts
(1829-1893), John Clark Sims (1845-1901), and Colonel Edwin Jefferies
(1815-1899). Photographs accompany most of the biographical
sketches and there is an index at the end of the book. (206
pages, book, obtained from University of Nebraska at Omaha Library)
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Wilson, William Bender. (1911). History
of the Pennsylvania Railroad Department of the Young Men's Christian
Association of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Stephen
Greene Company.
Railroading in the early days was accompanied by the rough and wild
behavior of railroad employees. Intoxication was so prevalent
that construction deadlines and train schedules were often sacrificed,
and railroad companies realized that their early attempts to regulate
such behavior through rules had little effect. To attempt to
mitigate these problems the first railroad Young Men's Christian
Association had formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1872. In the
winter of 1876-77, Thomas A Scott, then President of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, joined with William H. Vanderbilt, John W. Garrett,
Cornelius Vanderbilt and Morris K. Jessup to promote the Railroad
Departments of the Young Men's Christian Association.
Following Presidents Scott's endorsement, the PRR Young Men's Christian
Association was formed in Philadelphia in May of 1877. A
constitution and by-laws were adopted by an enthusiastic group of
representatives from the PRR shops, warehouses, and general
offices. Wilson presents a detailed year-by-year history of
the organization from 1877 through 1909 when there were 2,338
members. He covers the work of the organization and its
numerous committees, including membership rosters, financial data,
organization events, speakers and their speeches, and short
biographical information on significant people. An eight-page
tribute to the late Alexander J. Cassatt, PRR President from 1899-1906,
is presented covering a meeting on December 28th and a memorial service
on December 30th, 1906, which includes several speeches in his
honor. Also, the book includes a four-page biographical
sketch of Col. William Bender Wilson who was a long-time member and
officer of the organization. In addition, to writing the
two-volume History of the Pennsylvania Railroad, he was honored by
Congress and the Secretary of War for his heroic service during the
Civil War as a military telegrapher and scout. He later
served as Superintendent of Telegraph of the Northern Central Railway,
then as Superintendent of the Mantua Transfer, and the Special Agency
of the Philadelphia terminal Division. A very religious and
civic-minded man, Wilson ends his book by stating that the rough
railroad pioneers of history have "by reason of the educational methods
of the Young Men's Christian Association" ... "advanced in knowledge,
refinement and gentleness" ... "and his footsteps are either moving
with, or being directed toward, the Church of Christ". (296
pages, book)
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Wood, Don. (1973). I Remember Pennsy.
Earlton, NJ: Audio-Visual Designs.
Wood photographed the Pennsy at work beginning immediately after World War
II and continuing until the mighty railroad's demise when it merged
with the New York Central. This book features approximately
225 of his photographs, most recorded during the mid-to-late fifties
and most black-and-white. There are many quite striking and
quite interesting photographs in this work. After a forward
written by David P. Morgan of Trains Magazine, Wood includes eight
chapters that present brief one-page introductory text to set the stage
for numerous captioned photographs. His chapter on The New
York & Long Branch, a 38.4 mile commuter line shared with
Pennsy co-owner Jersey Central, is his longest chapter (32
pages). This extensive coverage seems warranted because the
"Long Branch Route" was the "final stamping grounds for Pennsy's
legendary K4s Pacifics". Wood also provides very interesting
views of the Wilmington Shops, Enola Yard, the East Altoona Shops, and
many other busy PRR locales. In the forward David P. Morgan
states the point of this pictorial is "the Pennsylvania Railroad
managed to be different and huge and engaging," and that he is "glad
that the big system attracted a photographer with the enthusiasm, the
energy, and the skill of Don Wood". (168 pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1988).
Pennsy diesel years (Vol. 1). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
In the introduction to volume one of this exquisite six-volume set Bill
Volkmer reminds us that standardization no longer existed on the
"Standard Railroad of the World" during the PRR's diesel
years. Instead the Pennsy's extensive fleet of diesel
locomotives (numbering 2,465 in 1960) was made up of almost every make
and model of diesel power that was available. In addition the
locomotives were scattered to small engine houses that were located all
over the PRR system. The roster contained many unusual and
even unique locomotives. That widely diverse collection of
diesel motive power provided plenty of subjects for Yanosey's
photographic depiction. About 270 full-color photographs are
presented in volume one, including the work of Bob Malinoski, Marty
Zak, Jack Swanberg, Tom McNamara, Charlie Brown, Ken Douglas, Dick
Flock, Bill Volkmer, and Bill Brennan. Their photographs show
diesel locomotives working in many scenic and interesting Pennsy
locations. The high-quality photographs are quite beautiful
and the lengthy captions inform the reader about the mechanical power
and the locations. A six-page roster of the Pennsylvania
Railroad diesel-electric locomotives as of December 15, 1960 compiled
by W.D. Volkmer is presented at the end. (160
pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1989). Pennsy
diesel years (Vol. 2). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books.
Yanosey continues his photographic
record of Pennsy diesel locomotives with over 200 beautiful scenes of
working diesel power. Volume two begins at the Hudson River
and the scenery continues to the Great Lakes area with
lengthy and informative captions. The photographs
of Bob Malinoski, Marty Zak, Jack Swanberg, Tom McNamara, Dick Flock,
Bill Brennan (who also contributed the introduction), Bill Volkmer,
Chester Fuhrmann, Dave Sweetland, Al Di Censo, Roy Ward, and Dick Short
are included. A five-page "Pennsylvania Railroad Diesel
Roster - December 16, 1960 to January 31, 1968, Second Generation and
Renumbered Units Only", compiled by Mark Branibar, is also included in
the back of volume two. (128 pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1990). Pennsy
diesel years (Vol. 3). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books.
Yanosey's third photographic journey through Pennsy's diesel years
presents an additional 180 beautiful color photographs of working
diesel locomotives in diverse PRR locations. Most shots were
taken in the mid-sixties supplemented by several from the late fifties
and late sixties. In the introduction, David R. Sweetland,
reminds the reader that beginning in 1962 the Pennsy radically changed
its utilization of diesel locomotives by using multiple units
consisting of various engine types. Until then, the Pennsy
used only multiple in kind units. This change enabled a more
efficient use of motive power even though it required some equipment
modifications because MU connections were not standard between engine
types. This book includes many photos of interesting lashups
including the mixing of first and second generation
locomotives. Yanosey begins the book with a very interesting
essay using excerpts from Pennsy annual reports to show the evolution
of the diesel as a symbol of railroading innovation in 1947 to "just
another tool in one of the Company's less profitable endeavors in
1965". The photographs provide some unique and very
interesting scenes of PRR diesel operations including rubber-tired
diesels (tractors) used in Baltimore and Jersey City, the Bel-Del
operation at Phillipsburg, VO-660 and VO-1000 (commonly know as Very
Olds) diesel switchers in the Philadelphia area, the Delmarva Branch
and the float yard at Cape Charles VA, the Renovo Shops and RS3 number
8445 (Hammerhead), Alco DL640s and C630s, Conemaugh and Johnstown,
Pitcairn Yard, and many more. A very interesting glimpse of
freight train operations at Madison Hill, IN, the steepest grade
(5.89%) on a regular railroad in the US includes a reprint of
"Instructions for Preparation and handling of Freight Trains on Grades,
etc. 1155-A1 Columbus-Madison Secondary Track. (Madison
Hill.)" In addition the book includes many illustrations
taken from PRR annual reports from 1947-1966 and a list of Diesel
acquisitions culled from PRR annual reports from 1928-1968.
(128 pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1991). Pennsy
diesel years (Vol. 4). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books.
Yanosey continues his fascinating and colorful depiction of the
Pennsylvania diesel locomotive herd in this fourth
installment of Pennsy Diesel Years. In the introduction
Robert Malinoski, the excellent railroad photographer, reminds the
reader that photographers were treated to almost unending variety due
to the diversity and immensity of the PRR diesel fleet.
Volume 4 of this series proves that there is plenty more to
see. It opens with a portion of an article entitled "The
Pennsy's Predicament" which was first printed in the March 1948 issue
of Fortune Magazine. The article states that the Pennsy's
problems immediately after World War II were caused by its lack of
modern motive power, i.e., diesel locomotives. The PRR had
focused on completion of the electrification of its eastern
lines and also upon not antagonizing the coal producers, its biggest
customers. Therefore Pennsy did not begin dieselization until
1947 when it was already far behind in earning power compared to its
competitors. The book then shows more of the awesome diesel
power fleet that the Pennsy had developed by the 1960s through about
180 color photographs taken by some of the best railroad
photographers. The works of W.D. Volkmer, William Coxey,
David R. Sweetland, K. Allen Keller, Al Roberts, Bob Watson, Fred
Cheney, Roy Ward, the author himself, and many others are included in
this volume. Like all the other volumes in this series, many
interesting locations and equipment are shown. Pages 10-35
cover Harrisburg to Atlantic City and include scenes of Harrisburg
Station, Lebanon Valley Branch, Camden, Pavonia Yard, Pemberton Branch,
Merchantville, and Haddonfield. Pages 36-55 cover
Williamsport to Sodus Point including Newberry Junction, Elmira Branch,
Troy and Snedekerville, the tragic head-on collision of freights SS2
and SS3 at Orleans, NY, in May 1964, and the Sodus Point Coal
Dock. Pages 56-123 cover Altoona to Detroit including about
23 pages of the Altoona Cresson area, and 12 pages at the Conway
Yard. Throughout the book there are numerous small
illustrations from Pennsy promotional materials, timetables, covers
from The Pennsy, and a few maps including a sketch of Conway yard.
Another very useful feature of this volume is the "Index to Pennsy
Diesel Years" covering volumes 1 through 4 of the series. The
index includes builder and engine class listings, location listings,
and subject listings. (128 pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1993). Pennsy
diesel years (Vol. 5). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun
Books.
According to this book's introductory material, in the early 1950s the
PRR management hired, for the first time in Pennsy history, a
non-railroad consulting firm, Robert Heller & Associates of
Cleveland, to recommend a management overhaul of the PRR
system. The board of Directors approved the reorganization
plan in November, 1955, in an attempt to improve the PRR's ability to
compete effectively with highways, pipelines, river barges,
automobiles, etc. The reorganization created nine regions,
each with its own management that controlled operations, sales, and
maintenance for the region; and each region competed with the other PRR
regions. This book uses the nine 1955 PRR regions to organize
its tour of the Pennsy's diesel fleet. Almost 200 vivid color
photographs display (mostly) working diesel locomotives in interesting
and many infrequently photographed locations. The tour begins
in the Lake Region including scenes from Detroit, Cleveland, and
Canton. The cameras then move to the Northern Region with
several beautiful shots at Drocton Tower, Lock Haven, and
Montandon. Then the photos move to the New York
Region including scenes from the Meadows, Princeton Branch,
and Bel-Del Branch. Next the Philadelphia Region provides
interesting shots at Greenwich Yard in South Philadelphia, Rockville,
and Harrisburg. The Chesapeake Region offers Clayton on the
Delmarva Branch, and includes photos from Harrington, Delmar, and Royal
Oak. The Pittsburgh Region presents Banks, Thompsontown, the
Horseshoe Curve (of course), and AR Tower in Gallitzin, PA.
Buckeye Region includes Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. The
Southwestern Region includes Indianapolis, Terre Haute, and St. Louis,
and the tour ends in the Northwestern Region with shots at Fort Wayne,
Englewood, and Chicago. PRR diesel power in shown in many
other locations throughout this book along with maps and other
miscellaneous graphics. In addition a list of "Regional
Monthly Maintenance Points of PRR Diesel Power by Classes and Unit
Numbers on September 1, 1960" is printed at the end of the
book. (128 pages, book)
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Yanosey, Robert J. (1996). Pennsy
diesel years (Vol. 6). Edison, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Eight years after the first Pennsy Diesel Years book was published,
Yanosey and Morning Sun Books issued this supposedly last volume in the
series. The six-volume series has preserved and made public
over 1200 exquisite color photographs presented with informative
captions, short essays, and numerous illustrations and reproductions of
Pennsy promotional materials and other extras. Although
Yanosey originally intended to produce one volume of mostly
black-and-white photographs, he quickly discovered that many caches of
excellent color photographs by talented photographers were
available. Thus, one black-and-white volume turned into six
color volumes over eight years. Volume six opens with an
introduction by William D. Volkmer about his six-month stint as the
night roundhouse foreman at the 59th Street enginehouse, on Chicago's
south side in 1963. Volkmer claims that Chicago was where
everything that had broken down in the 715 mile run from Enola ended up
from repairs. He goes on to state that Chicago "was about as
far away from the head shed in Philadelphia" as possible, and that a
shortage of parts and the diversity of equipment made for some
interesting times. He states, "...if the Pennsy found out
that they had two diesel locomotives that were alike, they would have
scrapped one of them, just to be consistent!" The book
presents its portrait of the PRR diesel power through a pictorial
journey from Miami, FL, through Jacksonville, Louisville, Indianapolis,
and South Bend to Chicago. Then a return journey to the east coast from
Chicago through Gary, Warsaw, Fort Wayne, Lima, Upper Sandusky,
Massillon, Conway, East Pittsburgh, Pitcairn, Cresson, Duncansville,
Hollidaysburg, Horseshoe Curve, Altoona, Tyrone, Duncannon, Enola,
Rockville, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Norristown, Philadelphia, Levittown,
Jersey City, and New York City to journey's end at Penn
Station. Many other locations are traversed along the
way. Over 240 color photographs are included along with many
PRR publicity reproductions. Unfortunately no overall index
to the six-volume series is included. Like the other volumes
in this series, volume six should not be neglected by those interested
in the Pennsy or by diesel fans of any company. (128 pages,
book)
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Yungkurth, Chuck & Miller, Edward Stokes. (1999).
Trackside around Scranton, PA, 1952-1976, with Edward S. Miller.
Scotch Plains, NJ: Morning Sun Books.
Robert Yanosey and Morning Sun Books’ Trackside series presents
the amazing work of many railroad photographers who worked in many
different locations from the 1940s through the mid-1970s.
Volume 14 presents the photographic work of Edward S. Miller covering
railroading in the anthracite coal-mining region of the Lackawanna and
Wyoming Valleys near Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in northeastern
Pennsylvania. Like the other volumes in the Trackside series
this book contains beautiful color photographs of railroad motive
power, other equipment, and trackside settings. Several
railroads working in the area are covered in the book, including,
Lehigh Valley, Lackawanna, Delaware & Hudson, Erie, Erie
Lackawanna, Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley (Laurel Line), Central
Railroad of New Jersey (Jersey Central), and the
Pennsylvania. Yungkurth selected many truly stunning
photographs depicting railroad activities in this rugged, industrial,
yet beautiful area of Pennsylvania. He provided brief essays
on the life and work of Edward S. Miller and railroading in the
area. In addition, he provided an informative introduction to
each chapter focusing on the railroad covered in the chapter and
informative captions for the photographs. Yungkurth advised
that the PRR’s presence in the area “remains for the most part
undocumented,” and unfortunately only four photos of PRR equipment are
included. However, I enjoyed this book very much and
recommend it to any railroading enthusiast. (128 pages, book,
obtained from Luzerne County Community College Library in Nanticoke, PA)
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Zak, Martin S.
& Withers, Paul K. (1999). Pennsy electric pictorial.
Halifax, PA: Withers Publishing.
Zak and Withers produced a very interesting presentation of
black-and-white photographs of Pennsylvania Railroad electric
locomotives. The book consists of five chapters beginning
with “Early Pennsy Electrics”, which presents a brief history of the
early Pennsy electrics in eight pages and eleven photographs.
The PRR first used electrics to facilitate its 1910 entry into New York
City. Locomotives such as the DD1, the FF1, the L5, the O1
and the O1A,B,&C were used prior to the early 1930s.
The PRR owned 133 of these early electric locomotives, built between
August 1905 and May 1934. All but one D class and one L6A
class locomotive were built by the PRR at Juniata. The second
chapter, “P5”, contains thirty-two pages and forty-four
photos. Ninety-two P5 locomotives, built between July 1931
and February 1935 were owned by the PRR. Only thirteen of
these were built by the PRR at Juniata. Next, “GG1” contains
seventy-one pages and eighty-eight photos. The PRR owned 139
GG1 locomotives, built between August 1934 and June 1943. All
but fifteen were built at Juniata. The fourth
chapter, “E44”, contains twenty-nine pages and thirty-two
photos. Sixty-six E44 & E44As, all built by General
Electric between October 1960 and July 1963, were owned by the PRR.
The last chapter devotes thirteen pages and seventeen photos
to “Experimental and Secondhand Motors.” This chapter covers
the PRR-built DD2 (one locomotive built in 1938), General Electric’s
E2B (six built in 1951), Baldwin’s E3B (two built in 1951), Baldwin’s
E2C (two built in 1951), and Alco’s FF2 (seven built from 1927 through
1951, purchased used from Great Northern Railway in the late 1950s and
early 1960s). Each chapter contains a brief introduction and
a locomotive roster showing Road Numbers, Class, Wheel Arrangement,
Horsepower, Quantity, Builder, Data Built, Electrical Equipment
Manufacturer, ac/dc designation, and Notes. All photographs
include informative captions and most were taken by Martin Zak or were
from his collection. A one-page foreword by Frank Tatnall and
a five-item bibliography are also included. (160 pages, book,
obtained from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Library)
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Ziel, Ron. (1984). The
Pennsy Era on Long Island. Bridgehampton, NY:
Sunrise Special Ltd.
The Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the Long Island Railroad in 1900
because it needed the LIRR's franchise to tunnel under the Hudson and
East Rivers to establish a terminal on Manhattan. The Pennsy
maintained ownership of the LIRR until 1966 when it was sold to the
State of New York for $65 million, which was only about one-twentieth
of its replacement value. Ziel's book addresses the LI's
motive power during a span of 52 years from 1903 to 1955 when the
Pennsy-supplied motive power played a major role in the LI.
From 1929 through 1955 Pennsy power dominated the steam roster of the
LI, and all the electric locomotives ever owned by the LI were designed
and built by the PRR shops in Altoona,
Pennsylvania. This book presents a class-by-class
description of the role played by Pennsy locomotives during the
period. Each of eleven chapters deals with a specific
locomotive class, for example, H-6sb 2-8-0 Consolidation, E-6s 4-4-2
Atlantics, or K-4s 4-6-2 Pacifics, etc., and presents brief
introductory text about the locomotives along with numerous
well-captioned photographs. In addition there are chapters
about electric locomotives, internal combustion locomotives, and
non-PRR locomotives on the LIRR. Approximately 215
black-and-white photographs, 21 color photographs, and a 1916 map of
the Long Island Railroad System are included. See also:
Kramer (1978). (116 pages, book)
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Zimmermann, Karl R. (1977). The
remarkable GG1. New York: Quadrant Press.
Zimmermann has published several railroad books and articles, and this
is his second book about electric railroading. The other
covered the Milwaukee road. As a long-time resident of New
Jersey he saw many GG1s and his tribute to the beloved locomotive
presents a chronicle of its development and use by the
Pennsy. About 120 black-and-white captioned photographs are
included along with a few reproductions of PRR promotional
materials. A GG1 roster as of January 1, 1977 which shows the
disposition of each locomotive, i.e., whether it was retired or
acquired by Conrail, Amtrak, or the New Jersey Department of
Transportation, is included. A brief sixteen-item
bibliography is also provided. (72 pages, book)
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