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One Man's Locomotives By Vernon Smith 50 yrs experience w/ Railway Motive Power
One Mans Locomotives By Vernon Smith
181 Pages
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket (notice the minor damage on the binding edge of the Dust jacket)
Copyright 1987 FIRST PRINTING
CONTENTS
Foreword 5
Acknowledgements 6
1. Steam and Electrics in the Iron Country9
2. The Drawing Offices 43
3. The Poppet Valve Locomotives 61
4. On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe87
5. At the Railroad Center of the U.S.A. 129
Epilogue 157
Franklin Poppet Valve Gear Applications 160
Locomotive Lists 162
Bibliography 178
Index179
IT WAS THE BEST of times for a young man starting out in life: the late 1920s. When Vernon L. Smith found a job firing a locomotive in the rugged iron country of northern Minnesota, he knew he had found a calling. Soon it was the worst of times: the Great Depression.
But Vernon Smith kept going, getting a technical education, winning an engineering apprenticeship at a major carbuilder. Later he would labor on new designs at Lima Locomotive in the full tide of Super Power steam development .. . be on the cutting edge of steam technology at Franklin Railway Supply, developers of poppet-valve gears . . . work with the Pennsy during the development of the amazing T1 steamer . . . put in 10 years with the Santa Fe during the transition from steam to diesel.
Finally came those last 22 years with the Belt Railway of Chicago, where Smith capped his career as the boss of all motive power.
Along the way you'll absorb these priceless vignettes: what it was like to learn the railroad trade by firing and running locomotives up on the Iron Range in -20 degree Minnesota winters . . . poppet-valve experiments on Pennsy K4s . .. fire, flood and derailment hazards from Minnesota to Maryland, Illinois to California . . . and acquaintance of the closest sort with the apogee of steam (ATSF 3752) and the pinnacle of diesel esthetics (ATSF PA-1 No. 51).
Here is a remarkable book about a remarkable man. You'll share Vernon Smith's life with locomotives. Many of the photos are his own, and this journal bears the expert editing touch of Louis A. Marre, who wrote the introduction and supplied many additional photos.
We commend it to you with this warning: once you get inside, it may be difficult to put this book down. But in this case that is a very nice problem, indeed.
All pictures are of the actual item. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
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