"The Red Devil" by Wardale book questions

p51 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2025 3:20 am

I found a copy of this book at a model train show today.
I'd heard of it for years but had questions:
How much was the list price?
How many were printed?
As I'd never seen one at a show at any price since they were printed, I assume they rarely get sold?

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Mon Mar 10, 2025 12:59 pm

David Wardale had the book privately published in 1998. (Think in terms of "vanity press.") Dave Goodheart brought over a supply from the UK and was selling them in 2001-02 for $55 plus $5 shipping.

https://advanced-steam.org/5at/referenc ... -a-review/ has more on the book:

Quote:

The book was originally published by Wardale himself, who produced a total of 2600 copies, 1000 in the first printing, 600 in the second and 1000 in the third. A fourth print run of 500 copies produced by Camden Miniature Steam in 2013 was sold out by early 2014 since when second-hand prices for the book have risen again to exorbitant levels once again.

The good news is that a fifth print run is now on sale for £42.95 (plus postage). Furthermore copies can now be ordered through ASTT’s book sales page. (Note – price discounts are available to ASTT members)

£42.95 is about $55.50 today. And shipping and duty will almost double that at today's prices. I don't know if that edition is still available.

If you saw that book stateside at less than $100 you should have grabbed it, if only to flip it for a fast buck. I've had three copies over the years; two had vanished (one theft, one accident), and the copy I currently have I traded with a member of this forum for an extra copy of the Rainey & Kyper East Broad Top book, in what we considered a "fair trade."

As for readability, I'm kind of mixed on my opinion on it. Much of the book is HIGHLY technical, on the order of reading Ralph Johnson's "The Steam Locomotive" (1942), very much an engineering textbook that will make the "typical" railfan's eyes glaze over. Other parts of the book are more personal anecdote, and at times butts heads with the "politics" of business promotion and decisions. His discussions of the American Coal Enterprises project of the 1980s is eye-opening to those who only heard the Ross Rowland side of the story, accusing the entire "test runs" of "C&O 614T" in January 1985 of being simply a "publicity stunt" in which no truly useful data was garnered.

p51 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 10, 2025 10:52 pm

Thanks for the data.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

If you saw that book stateside at less than $100 you should have grabbed it, if only to flip it for a fast buck.

Oh, I bought it and I intend on reading it over time.
And it was well under a hundred bucks...

"The Red Devil" by Wardale book questions

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