A couple things...
Casey asked "Does this mean on the center or blind drivers? I would assume the lead and rear drivers would have to have a full size flange." Be careful... not all center drivers were blind... and on some 4-4-0's the pilot truck and rear driver had flanges while the lead driver did not... There were some variations on what drivers might be blind on Moguls and Mason Bogies as well...
There is a rich tradition of Railroad literature in the 19th century...
The (Master) Car Builder's Dictionary was occasionally published from 1879... we have a list of the on- line editions at [
www.pacificng.com] .... I have my own that I have written for the Carter group based on west coast specific practice... Its something over 120 pages... plus drawings of practice and castings taking it over 180 pages...
Beyond the Car Builder's Dictionaries there the MCB also published annual proceedings... starting in the 1860's... Discussing what their standards should be... Marshall Kirkman had a series of books on railroad practice under the "Science of Railways", Voss had "Railroad Car Construction" originally a series of articles in the National Car Builder in the early 1890's, then published as a single work...
On locomotives Mathias Forney published the "Catechism of the Locomotive" (Forney was the editor of the first Car Builder's Dictionary) and Angus Sinclair (Publisher and Editor of Railway and Locomotive Engineering – A Practical Journal of Railway Motive Power and Rolling Stock) wrote "Locomotive Engine, Running and Management"
The common periodicals are the Railroad Gazette (later Railway Age) the National Car Builder, and Railway and Locomotive Engineering... There were many others... plus the proceedings of the various professional associations... the Master Car Painters, the Master Mechanics, etc... some are harder to find but between Google, Archives.org, and the Linda Hall Library you can now find most without a trip to various university libraries or Washington DC...
Randy
Randy Hees
Director, Nevada State Railroad Museum, Boulder City, retired
PacificNG.org - a curated Wiki on Pacific Slope Narrow Gauge www.pacificng.com
Moderator - Railway Preservation News www.rypn.org
