Has anyone seen a copy of the book, "The Engine Driver's Manual" by Brian Topping? It is a British treatise on how to prepare, fire and "drive" (in UK parlance) a steam locomotive, and is thorough in scope. It's richly illustrated with over 300 drawings, photographs, diagrams, glossaries and 1922pp. of text. This not a lush railfan book--Topping was a fireman on the BR and offers no-nonsense tips and techniques learned from years of experience.

My question to members of the American steam community is: when will we have an AMERICAN version of "The Engine Driver's Manual?" Let's pull together all the Conrads, Moedingers, Lees, McCormicks, et al, and document the craft of 20th century steam locomotive technology as much as is possible between two covers! Any thoughts?

http://rrmuseumpa.org

I have Toppings book and it is great. I am going to use it for my trainees.

Few steam railroads apart from D&S, CATS, and Grand Canyon provide intensive steam operation to the point that their staffs could write a comparable book.

I nominate Jack Anderson to fill that gap. Mt Rainier does some fine railroading under interesting conditions with a variety of types of power.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

If all of our steam guru's got together, the first thing that would happen is a bar-room brawl to see who got to veto who, but then someone would be left standing to have dictatorial control over the book and that might work. (not really, but maybe?)

Seriously, create a comparable manual to the British book mentioned, and I am sure it would sell a few hundred to just under 1000 copies (based on other similar re-publications from our past). I for one would buy 4-5 copies for a project I'm working on to educate my train crews.

Simmons Boardman might be interested in a book like that, try to get them involved early and they might help make this happen using the old manuals and pamphlets from the past. It's great Idea!

Good luck, & Post a message here when it comes to fruition.

David


dbloyed@airmail.net