Please check out some of the technical information available on this excellent website owned by The Association of Tourist and Heritage Rail Australia. You need to download the index as an Excel spreadsheet (links are provided for a reader in case you do not have Excel), if you are unfamiliar with excel, there are more pages (sheets) to explore along the bottom of the screen and scroll buttons to the left. Have fun exploring! A big thank you to our Australian brothers and sisters for sharing!
http://www.athra.asn.au/technical-library/

Can we please do something similar here in the states, or are we going to remain a bunch of independent hoarders?

Mike Tillger

A few of the 100+ files/photos that can be downloaded from the above mentioned link:

Tate Staybolt catalog
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/staybolt_catalogx.pdf

Nicholson_Thermic_Syphons_Bulletin_No17a-safety features in illustrated form
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/Nicholson_Thermic_Syphons_Bulletin_No17a.pdf

Welding of locomotive boilers Whitelegg & Rogers
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/Welding_of_locomotive_boilers_Whitelegg&Rogers.pdf

How not to repair a boiler
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/PB_boiler_inside0001.pdf

Coale Safety Valve Machining Instructions
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/Coale_Safety_Valve_Machining_Instructions.pdf

Tube-Weld-Procedure
http://www.athra.asn.au/library/Tube-Weld-Proedure.pdf

THIS! And nicely organized, too!
This is a very good example of what we need in the way of material sharing.

Hmmm...now off to Gutenberg and Archive and every other old book site to see if I can, at the very least, dig out the useful stuff there to get us started.