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North American Locomotives By Michael Swift w/ dust jacket
North American Locomotives By Michael Swift
Hard cover With Dust Jacket 224 Pages
Copyright 2009
NORTH AMERICAN LOCOMOTIVES
The railroad changed the face of the nation: it enabled cities to grow and the country to expand westward; it employed vast numbers in construction and operation; it was at the forefront of technological and design innovation; it was, quite literally, the driving force behind the most powerful economy in the world.
In almost 200 years of railroading history the country has seen myriad developments in the nature of railroad traction. The earliest, wood-burning, locomotives used technology imported from Europe but then U.S. designers and engineers came to the fore, improving and enlarging the steam technology that was to dominate the railroad scene until after 1945. During these years some of the greatest and most powerful locomotives ever constructed emerged from U.S. workshops and U.S.-built locomotives were exported to all quarters of the globe.
As the steam locomotive became increasingly obsolete, it was U.S. companies, like General Motors and General Electric, that pioneered the development of diesel and electric traction before the Second World War and, in the decades subsequently, have continued to improve this technology to meet the ever-changing needs of the railroad industry.
The author Michael Swift provides a primarily pictorial history of the development of the railroad locomotive in North America from the earliest steam locomotives through to the latest diesel and electric types. Incorporating over some 200 illustrations, the book is a fascinating portrait of the evolution of the railroad engine.
Contents
Introduction
Steam Locomotives of the 19th Century The Locomotives Mature-1890 to 1920 Steam Perfected-1925 to 1946
Branch Line and Narrow Gauge Steam Juice Jacks-Electric Locomotives Railcars, Streamliners and Turbo Trains The Diesel Takes Over (1925 to 1990) Modern Diesels (1990 to present) Index
As in Europe, the first railroads in the U.S.A. grew up to serve industry in the years before the arrival of public railroads. The generally accepted first public railroad in the U.S.A. was the Baltimore & Ohio, which was first launched at a meeting of Baltimore businessmen in 1827. Despite opposition from powerful forces, including Congress, work started on July 4, 1828 and the first 13-mile section opened in May 1830. At first, the trains were hauled by horses, but in August 1830 the first steam locomotive operated over the line. This was Peter Cooper's Tom Thumb, but this locomotive was not the first in the U.S.A. The honor of being the first steam locomotive to run in North America belonged to one from Britain: the Stourbridge Lion, which had been tested by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company in 1829 but had been deemed unsuitable by the company's engineer, Horatio Allen.
Although much of the pioneering work in the development of railroads occurred in Europe, in particular in Britain during the first three decades of the 19th century, it was not long before the technology associated with railroad construction and operation crossed the Atlantic and the first pioneering railroads were completed in the U.S.A. During the early years a number of steam locomotives were imported from Britain and their designs were to influence early U.S. locomotive development.
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