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Electric Railway Dictionary 1911 Original First Edition Hard Cover
Electric Railway Dictionary 1911 First Edition Hard Cover SPINE -- most of the covering is off the spine.
Definitions and illustrations of the parts and equipment of electric railway cars and trucks.
This is a book of nostalgia, but it is also a book containing practical lessons to be learned. It is a valuable reference work for planners who want to know more about the type of transportation people used and enjoyed in earlier years, and also a rich source of authentic details for model builders, historians and others who have a serious interest in the actual equipment used in those days of clean air, quiet streets and rapid-enough transit.
Today's city planners and transportation experts have set some formidable criteria for local transportation, or "rapid transit" systems. They want systems that are ..
a. Reasonably quiet
b. Pollution-free
c. Economical
d. Pleasant to ride
e. Conveniently scheduled
f. Comprehensive in
coverage of the area
Little wonder that many of them are studying the "good old days" when American cities actually bad such systems! Not known by fancy terminology, not regarded as technological miracles, merely the natural way to get to and from work on time, to deliver a gift to Aunt Mary at the other end of town, to do the family shopping, or to take the kids to the circus.
By 1911, electricity had replaced the horse to provide the motive power for this marvel of transit. Every major city in America had the benefits of the electric street railway, and many areas used efficient inter-urban lines to connect towns that were not to merge into solid suburban masses until many years later.
The 1911 ELECTRIC RAILWAY DICTIONARY is one of the important source books for students of this happy period when a person could go anywhere in town for a nickel. A collection of 1,987 photographs and line drawings comprise the main part of the book. They show the amazing diversity and degrees of comfort afforded by street and inter-urban transit systems of the period, from the wonderful open-air style of cars used as late as the 1940's to transport Yale students to football games outside of New Haven, to such unusual but important equipment as the funeral car built by the J. C. Brill Company.
Floor plans, air brakes, control mechanisms, wheel trucks and body framing are shown in enough detail that model builders can construct accurate scale reproductions. The photographs illustrate a fascinating range of styles for any student of the era.
The book's other two sections provide further important and colorful information. 63 "dictionary" pages explain all there is to know about electric cars from "Alternating Current" to "Z-Bar". 55 pages of contemporary advertisements show the latest technology for sale to the car operators.
Editor's Note--Every industry has a technical language of its own and the terms and names of apparatus used cannot be found in any of the standard dictionaries. In the electric railway field, the evolution of motive power from horse to cable, and from cable to electricity, has resulted in many changes in the character of the rolling stock and its equipment. The terminology of the art has undergone a similar change. New names have been created and others have been borrowed from steam railway practice. Owing to the widely scattered growth of electric railways standardization of terms has been as slow as the standardization of parts. This has resulted in much confusion in ordering parts from manufacturers and in interpreting communications between railway companies. As a step toward standardizing the nomenclature of electric railway car construction the compilation of the Electric Railway Dictionary was undertaken.
The plan adopted in this work of defining the location and purpose of a part and referring to an illustration of that part in another section of the hook simplifies the finding of a term and makes possible a logical arrangement of the illustrations. The definitions are arranged alphabetically, with numerous cross references. Where more than one name is commonly applied to a part the preferred name is defined and the other names are also given in their proper places with a cross reference to the preferred name. The nomenclature of the manufacturers has been retained in most instances, so that but little trouble will be experienced in consulting this book in connection with catalogues and other manufacturers' literature. As an aid in ordering parts from the illustrations the manufacturer's name has been added below the title to each engraving.
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