Does anyone know where the Baldwin files of the late John Kirkland went after he died? John was employed by BLW and helped lead the diesel department at Eddystone, PA . He later became a salesman for the Baldwin Locomotive Works on the West Coast. An extraordinary gentleman !
John had taken some 16mm movies of BLW diesels being delivered and put into service; the SP and McCloud RR's come to mind. He had also written three books on the diesel locomotive builder's, the last of course was on the Baldwin Locomotive Works. He had told me that the next book would be on GE, but, that of course never happened.

Thanks !
Kevin Kohls

A very complete list of surviving Baldwin records can be found here:

http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/BAH/DAM/mg/mg427.htm

Another thought is to chat up Hank Rentschler (the last president of the successor company to BLH) who can be found on railroad.net in the BLW forum.

DPK

I believe a variation of this question about John Kirkland was asked back in 2005 and no information surfaced. This is not surprising though, considering that the vast majority of the former employees of steam and diesel locomotive builders have passed away without so much as a spoken history interview being saved.

PC

I am just posting again to bump this one back up the list and give it another chance, but I doubt much more information will emerge. Preservation of the knowledge base often tends to be a back burner issue until it is too late.

PC

After your initial post, I made some private inquiries. I have not had the opportunity to follow up with one suggestion because I am now traveling.

I was told of a report that one or more of John Kirland's unpublished manuscripts did go to someone for review. I know that person and need to make separate inquiry.

I have returned from my travels and I now have some additional information I can share.

Before John Kirkland went into a rest home he did turned over his manuscripts for the books on GE and EMD. The GE one was worked on and revised. In the nine years since the current holder of the manuscripts has not found a publisher. He says he needs to do some more editing and write captions.

Brian, thank you for your research.

Given that the book market is presently completely saturated with "pretty picture" books and that the economy is in freefall right now, and author royalties for most book projects are 1/2 or less of what they were in the 1980s (and work out to substantially less per page than doing similar topics as individual magazine articles), the long term publishing outlook for manuscripts that involve a lot of time and research is not very good. So I would not expect to see the GE book in print any time soon.

PC

I had a friendship with John that developed by mail at first, then in person when I began to have frequent business trips to the Bay area in the 1980s. Several years before he passed on, John shipped to me all of the sales files of the BLW San Francisco office, which he had retained when the office closed. I held those for several years, as they made fascinating reading. Believing that they belonged in the public record, I donated the files to the California State RR Museum. Anyone doing research on the subject of BLW diesels in their western region needs to read the accounts in those files. Educational, and downright amazing.

Dave Hamley
Belle Vernon, PA

Mr. Hamley:

Thank your for your addition. My contact had mentioned the items provided to you and subsequently given to California State RR Museum.

The CSRM library has an on-line "Archives and Manuscripts Collections" index; but, for some reason that index does not contain this particular collection.

Thank you for letting us know about its existence.

I appreciate the replies to my question concerning Mr. John Kirkland. I am glad to hear that his Baldwin sales file now resides at the California Railroad Museum and that there is the possibility of his GE and EMD books being published.
John was always great for answers and I kept all of the letters that he sent to me. He would try to answer all of your questions and was very kind and patient ! I remarked to him one time that I wish I knew what questions that I should be asking !
To those who have collected his books, I am sure that you will agree that considering he was a Baldwin man his coverage of the OTHER builders was quite fair and balanced.

Sincerely
Kevin Kohls