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American Steam Locomotive, The Volume 1 Evolution Swengel w/ Dust Jacket
The American Steam Locomotive Volume 1 Evolution By F M Swengel
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
Copyright 1967 269 pages.
Table Of Contents
Foreward5
Fronts Piece6
Introduction7
Preface8
Chapter I9
The Steam Locomotive Of The 1870's
Chapter Ii21
Locotive Development (1880 - 1894)
Chapter Iii51
The Years Of Change (1895 - 1900)
Chapter Iv75
The Beginning Of The New Era Of Locomotive
Design (1901 - 1904)
Chapter V99
The Years That Changed Railroading (1905 - 1910)
Chapter Vi127
Superheaters And Continued Growth (1911 -1915)
Chapter Vii159
World War I (1916 - 1920)
Chapter Viii183
The Roaring Twenties - Prelude (1921 - 1925)
Chapter Ix209
The Roaring Twenties - Final (1926 - 1930)
Chapter X239
The Ultimate American Steam Locomotive (1931
- 1949)
Epilog268
PREFACE
THE AMERICAN STEAM LOCOMOTIVE was born quite a long time ago, at least as far as the tangible evidences of this book are concerned. Back in 1932 a serious attempt to collect locomotive lore was formally begun, and now 35 years later, a definitive project has emerged. It was very soon apparent that world-wide coverage would be difficult, if not impossible; but it was equally evident that the lore of the American built steam locomotive offered a terrific range and scope, more than sufficient to absorb the time and efforts of any researcher.
American manufacturers have turned out about 180,000 steam locomotives, but by far the largest and most significant production has been from Baldwin, Lima, American and the predecessor companies. Significant production totals can be attributed to the Railroad Company Shops, while other firms have swelled the total with engines built for industrial, plantation and export use. Very early history is extremely diverse, and involves a great many builders. A great deal of worthwhile and excellent research has been done on collecting and collating hundreds of fragments of information, to provide a reasonably complete story of the early day American locomotives.
Later history and development has tended to be documented in terms of a single railroad, or a treatise on a few outstanding specific locomotives. Comprehensive tabulations of motive power rosters have joined with nostalgia-producing pictorial presentations and the massive tomes of the "Locomotive Cyclopedia" to contribute to the mass of railroadiana. Magazines, house organs, advertising and the multitudinous and diverse other forms of publication, have so expanded the realm of locomotive lore, that very few individuals are fortunate enough to possess anything like a comprehensive library. Yet, throughout the years, there have been but few published works that attempted to present the American steam locomotive in a comprehensive manner, available to all levels of human interest, and so prepared as to appeal to the casual radian and the serious student.
The task of condensing those 180,000 steam locomotives into a physically plausible work, required some trimming and direction. It was soon decided that further rehashing and rewriting of the story of the very early engines was not justified, and that freaks that were impractical failures had little place in a serious documentation. Further refinement suggested that engine by engine detail would be not only boring, but would contain so much repetition that it would largely defeat the primary objective of providing reasonably concise, yet comprehensive coverage of the subject within the limits that could be attractive to the readers.
The large number of identical locomotives produced, and the high degree of similarity evident in many repeat orders placed by the major railroads, permitted further consolidation. Finally, it became apparent that even the most massive single volume could scarcely do justice to the remaining useful subject matter, so it was that THE AMERICAN STEAM LOCOMOTIVE became a multi-volume project. In total, this series hopes to present in word and picture, somewhere between 3000 and 4000 different specific examples of American built steam locomotives, which by extension and similarities, will be directly representative of more than 90% of all locomotives built in this country since 1890, and will give adequate background to fully understand and appreciate the balance.
No such work has ever been assembled, at least as far as this writer's 35 year search has disclosed. In seeking a starting point, it seemed most appropriate to trace the evolution of American steam power up to it's final development, and Volume I is devoted to this purpose. A great many well-known and widely respected locomotive types could not be given detail treatment or inclusion in this volume, and the presence or absence of any particular engine within this book, should not be considered as any indication of lack of merit for that particular set of engines. It is expected that later publications in this series will leave relatively few examples of omission, particularly in the case of types and classes that were widely used.
Here then, is the summary story of the American Steam Locomotive, that unique machine that reflected the growth and eventual maturity of a Nation. Here is a story of a machine that accurately and faithfully projects the American objectives of rugged utility and practicality, while yet aspiring to do things in a bigger and better manner. Like many other American inventions and concepts, the American Steam Locomotive spread throughout the civilized World, and these remarkable machines assisted in transporting the goods and people from Russia to South Africa, and from Afghanstan to Zanzibar. Only in America did the locomotive achieve maximum size and capacity, and it is from the Main Lines of American railroading that the representative examples used in this book, are selected.
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