American Steam Locomotives: Design and Development, 1880-1960 (Railroads Past and Present)
For nearly half of the nation's history, the steam locomotive was the outstanding symbol for progress and power. It was the literal engine of the Industrial Revolution, and it played an instrumental role in putting the United States on the world stage. While the steam locomotive's basic principle of operation is simple, designers and engineers honed these concepts into 100-mph passenger trains and 600-ton behemoths capable of hauling mile-long freight at incredible speeds. American Steam Locomotives is a thorough and engaging history of the invention that captured public imagination like no other, and the people who brought it to life. Hardcover, 424 pages.
Editorial Reviews
Now, with Withuhn, we have pretty much all we need: the details, the analysis, the scholarship, along with a wealth of supportive photography. But we also get something much more, and that’s Bill engaging prose. More than any reference book I’ve ever encountered, this one has wit and style. You can curl up with it and read it for pleasure. (Classic Trains)
"The book, which features one of the all-time great U.S. locomotives, a Nickel Plate Road Berkshire, on its cover, is a highly readable, entertaining, information packed volume."
(Trains)
American Steam Locomotives: Design and Development, 1880–1960 figures to be an authoritative reference for generations to come, written by that rarest of men who not only understand the engineering, but who have the writing skill to communicate it.
(Trains Magazine)
A unique book, filling a glaring void in the literature of an important transportation technology. It is comprehensive and covers 'all the bases' in the development of steam motive power from the latter decades of the 19th century to the end of steam innovation and production by 1960. Withuhn places his complex story into the larger context of railroading and national and international happenings.
(H. Roger Grant, author of Railroads and the American People)
About the Author
William L. Withuhn (1941–2017) was the long-time transportation curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. He was a licensed locomotive engineer who ran dozens of steam engines, from saddle-tankers to Northerns. Withuhn was also the chairman of the Federal Railroad Administration's Engineering Standards Committee, which re-wrote regulations for the 21st century and thus helped ensure continued operation of heritage locomotives. He was author of The Spirit of Steam and Rails Across America.
Bill was a friend of the C&OHS and me. In fact, we helped him with the Wright Brothers display in 2003 while he was still serving as Curator of Ground Transportation at the Smithsonian Institution. I began corresponding with Bill back in the mid-1970s. He was a source of information which I used in many of the articles I did on steam locomotives for the C&O Historical Magazine in the following decades. I have always considered him THE preeminent steam locomotive historian in America. His death in recent years has been a great loss.
