Cotton Belt Locomotives - Couverture rigide

Strapac, Joseph A.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0253336015 ISBN 13 : 9780253336019

Editeur : Indiana University Press, 1999

Synopsis

After an absence of many years Joseph Strapac's classic study of the "Cotton Belt Locomotives" is back in print! A little-known narrow-gauge empire consisting of over seven hundred miles of three-foot rail, stretching from the southern tip of Illinois to Fort Worth, Texas, was the genesis of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, better known as the Cotton Belt. Envisioned by capitalists in East Texas and St. Louis as an outlet for the agricultural production of the Lone Star State, the slim-gauge pike was pushed to completion in 1883 as a challenge to Jay Gould's Iron Mountain Missouri Pacific monopoly.For a few short years, seven dozen little moguls and eight-wheelers tiptoed over light rail until standard-gauging was accomplished. By the late 1880s the line was absorbed into the loose family of Gould roads, where it remained until the 1920s. A flirtation with the Katy and KCS might have led to a merger, but the line fell into the hands of the Southen Pacific. But, the Cottonbelt Railway was far more than an obscure extension of the Southern Pacific, operating hand-me-down locomotives on rusty rail. In fact, the Cotton Belt never owned a secondhand Espee engine.In steam days it owned a distinctive roster based upon 2-8-0s for freight, 4-6-0s for passengers, and moguls for switching, and by 1930, superpower arrived in the form of ten Baldwin 4-8-4s, which were later copied in the road's own shops. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Cotton Belt ordered its own diesels and chose some models (like the Baldwin center cab and Alco RS-3) never even seen on the Southern Pacific itself. Cotton Belt Locomotives, then, documents a proud and independent tradition going back a full century when the eighteen-ton 'Gov. Hubbard' was first fired up on the ancestral Tyler Tap Railroad in northeastern Texas.More than three hundred photographs, dozens of official diagrams, and four maps illustrate the seventeen chapters. A thorough text briefly delineates the history of the Railway and its antecedents. Individual chapters are presented on passenger motor cars, narrow gauge, all eight-wheel arrangements of standard gauge steam (from 0-6-0 to 4-8-4), and each of the major types of diesel power, bringing to print the entire hundred-year development of the locomotive fleet and the Railway itself.Included is an all-time roster of every steam and diesel locomotive up to 1977 owned by the Cotton Belt and its predecessors. The first and only complete study of the motive power of the Southwest's most successful railway back in print again! According to his parents, Joe Strapac has been watching trains ever since he has been old enough to look out of windows. Raised within earshot of the Southern Pacific's San Pedro branch and the Pacific Electric's Southern District, he began a serious interest in locomotives and railroading in 1953.In the years since, he has accumulated a collection of information and photographs pertaining to locomotives in the West, with a particular emphasis upon those of the Southern Pacific and its associates. Over the past decades, he created and refined the 'motive power annual' type of publication, preparing successive editions on the current diesel fleet of the Southern Pacific. In addition, he has contributed locomotive information to a number of books on railroading as well as writing many magazine articles.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Indiana University Press
• Date d'édition: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0253336015
• ISBN 13: 9780253336019
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 256
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible