[PRCo] Re: books

[Edward H. Lybarger]

And I can think of half a dozen more that are in PTM's library, all of which
are totally unknown to the railfan.  Cheape's "Streetcar Suburbs" is a good
start.  "Empires of Light" by Jill Jonnes is another.  There's another one
that explains very well how the regulatory agencies were really for the
benefit of the operators, since they couldn't control themselves from
cutthroat competition and needed Big Brother to tell them they couldn't do
it.  City developmental histories are also good.  In this area at least, the
large body of work on coal and steel are essential.  The Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania published most of the former.

Once you have some of these concepts down, you can begin to understand why
there were streetcars.  The rest of the story is purely mechanical and
political. 

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of
Schneider Fred
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2008 6:45 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: books

I tend to favor industry literature over railfan musings.   I am not  
going to mention any local electric railway books because I cannot  
think of one that should be on everybody's book shelf.   They all  
start with it was born, it ran, it quit and now I'm unhappy because  
they took my toys away.   Most leave out the middle years because  
nothing was being built.  If I could find one that honestly approached a
railway as a business corporation, I would recommend it but I can't think of
any.

Therefore you might want to consider reading the McGraw Hill weekly magazine
Street Railway Journal, Electric Railway Journal, Transit  
Journal (1884-1944) on microfilm or print.   I think most paper  
copies are in the PTM library.   Princeton Microfilm Corporation  
sells it as a 16mm film.   Some have been digitized and are now on  
the internet.

There was also a competitive publication called Electric Railway Review.

McGraw listed all of the railways in the magazine once a year in the  
early years.   Later on the list got so big that they sold a separate  
annual directory called McGraw's Directory.   Two of those were
reprinted by Harold Cox and Richard Wagner.   I think it might be  
1918 and 1922 that were reprinted but don't hold me to that.

Poors' and Moody's issued investment manuals for the stock and bond houses
showing all of the electric and horse and public transit  
bonds.   These will give you a very good idea of who owned whom and  
what they were worth.

There was also a reprint of an Electric Railway Dictionary that was  
done many years ago that gives a lot of information on hardward.    
Should be on every shelf.




On Dec 2, 2008, at 2:45 PM, Dennis F. Cramer wrote:

> If you had to pick 5 must have books on electric traction, what would 
> they be?
>
>
> Dennis F. Cramer
>       Trombone
>
>
>