In 1980, few railfans imagined that the sophistication of railroad car history publications would ever approach that of locomotives. Thirty years later, that dream is fast becoming a reality and dissemination of information is now the most important aspect. Except for some older printed books, all books are PDF files on CDs.
| A History of the Center Flow (2007) is an encyclopedic guide with 1,163 pages, hundreds of photographs, diagrams, and scale drawings. Center Flow cars were built by American Car & Foundry and American Railcar Industries from 1961 to the present, and include about one in fifteen North American freight cars currently in service. All covered, open-top, Pressureaide, and Through Sill models are detailed. |
| ACF Center Flow CF4600 (traditional book, 1994) is an illustrated guide to the CF4600 covered hopper design. It has 36 pages, 23 photographs, and 9 diagrams. Differences in construction, roof hatches, running boards, etc. are discussed in depth. Detailed rosters list the cars as they were built and relettered. |
| Berwick Forge & Fabricating (2013) is an illustrated guide to the railcars built by Berwick Forge & Fabricating and Berwick Freight Car from 1963 to 1993. It has 466 pages and about 475 railcar photographs. It includes a complete production list with a very large number of dispositions. It updates information in the National Railway Utilization Corp. book and includes all Emons (MPA) built kits. |
| The Bethlehem Plant, Fall of 1995 (2007) is primarily a collection of aerial photographs taken of the Bethlehem plant taken just before the last blast furnace shut down. The low altitude photographs were taken by the author and are not available anywhere else. Several maps, ground level photographs, and a brief history of the site round out the book which consists of 46 tabloid size pages. |
| Bethlehem Railcar Production from 1900 to 1978 (2011) is a production list of cars built by Cambria Steel, Midvale, Bethlehem Steel, and Harlan & Hollingsworth. Photos are mostly of cars built after the mid 1950s. The document contains 379 pages and 536 photos. |
| Bethlehem Railcar Production from 1978 to 2011 (2012) is a production list of cars built by Bethlehem Steel, Johnstown America, Freight Car Services, and FreightCar America. The BethGon, AutoFlood, Grainporter, ABC, AVC, other special designs and kits are all included. The document contains 318 pages and 498 photos. |
| Carbon Black Cars (traditional book, 1990) is still the definitive work on carbon black and fumed silica cars. The book includes rosters, 15 scale diagrams and 48 photos of designs built between 1933 and 1989. The majority were built by American Car & Foundry and Thrall, but cars built by Darby Car, Magor, National Steel Car, Pressed Steel Car, and Procor were also represented. |
| Cast Steel Underframe Railcar Production (2015) includes 94 pages of production lists. The following are included: American Steel Foundries, Commonwealth Steel, General Steel Castings, General Steel Industries, and eventual subsidiary, St. Louis Car. See Eric's Car of the Month page for free download. |
| Celtran, Inc. (2008) explores the entire roster of this North American subsidiary of Celanese, the largest producer of acetyl products. Their fleet once included over 3,000 tank and covered hopper cars. Many of the tank cars are unusual designs with aluminum or stainless steel tanks. A significant number had six-wheeled trucks. |
| Center Beam Cars (2007) is an amply illustrated roster of over 43,000 center beam cars built since their introduction in 1969. The book has 600 pages and 543 photographs. Reletterings and renumberings are fully covered. While many of the photographs were taken more recently, vintage shots from the late 1980s show some rare cars including ones lettered for Diamond B Lumber, Pend Orielle, Treesource and FCWR. |
| Evans Products Company Freight Cars (2003) is an overview of the Evans Products family of companies and their involvement with freight cars. The better known subsidiaries were U.S. Railway Equipment and Southern Iron & Equipment. The story of this innovative company is told in 52 pages and 59 photographs. |
| Evans Products Company Freight Car Roster Notes (2004) is a detailed listing of freight cars built, rebuilt and leased by Evans Products and subsidiaries. The complicated construction and leasing data fills 184 pages. Evans was a pioneer in "sale-lease back" arrangements and an important rebuilder in the 1960s and 1970s.They also built over 37,000 new cars. |
| Evans Products Builders Photographs (2006) reproduces most of the James A. Kinkaid collection. The book contains 548 official photographs of cars Evans built, rebuilt or repainted in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Most are in color. Evans favored bright colors and decorative lettering, and their cars have become favorites of rail fans and modelers. |
| A History of the General American Airslide and Other Covered Hopper Cars (2010) is a digital reprint of the classic published in 1989. I had several requests for this book recently and decided to go ahead with it even though the reproduction quality is only fair. The book includes rosters, scale diagrams and a small amount of photos. |
| General American Car Production List - 4180 and 4566 c.f. (2015) is an updated production list of all 4,180 and 4,566 cubic foot capacity Airslide cars built by General American. See Eric's Car of the Month page for free download. |
| Golden West Service (2009) is an illustrated roster of 10,474 cars rehabilitated under a joint Southern Pacific/Greenbrier program during the 1990s. Former Southern Pacific, Cotton Belt, and Rio Grande cars received new CPAA, CRLE, GPMX, GVSR, KCS, and VCY intials. The intricate roster is fully detailed in 539 pages with 301 photos. Click here to see selections from the book. |
| Gunderson and FMC Railcar Production through 1984 (2009) is an illustrated production list of railcars built at Gunderson's Portland plant and FMC's Charleton plant between 1958 and 1984. Dispositions follow each order in the list. There are over 480 pages and 680 photos. Click here to see selections from the book. A digital facsimile of FMC Boxcars Since 1972/Freight Cars Journal Monograph #1 is also included. |
| Gunderson Railcar Production from 1985 to 2009 (2010) is an illustrated production list of railcars built at Gunderson's Portland plant, Gunderson-Concarril's Sahagun plant, and Gunderson-GIMSA's Monclova plant between 1985 and 2009. Dispositions follow each order in the list. There are over 420 pages and 1,040 photos. |
| Lehigh & New England Railroad Freight Car Diagram Book (traditional book, 1993) includes 56 pages of rosters, photographs and diagrams. Charts show yearly quantities in service. Lists of passenger and maintenance of way equipment are included. This railroad which served the anthracite coal and portland cement regions of Pennsylvania was dismantled in 1961. |
| Lehigh Valley Freight and Passenger Car Rosters (2010) was originally published in 1996 and revised in 2003. This is the ebook version of the 48 page book which includes detailed rosters of the Lehigh Valley Railroad from 1885 to 1976. |
| National Railway Utilization Corporation (2006) explores the complexities of the acquisition and liquidation of the NRUC fleet of box cars. Their fleet of distinctive, light blue cars began to spread across North America in 1973. While they were forced to sell off most of their cars during the 1980s, many were only relettered and remained in their original colors. |
| Northampton & Bath Freight Cars (traditional book, 1994) is a pictorial roster of this U.S. Steel subsidiary in the Pennsylvania cement belt. Includes detailed drawings of their 1923 NYC design box cars and a map of the railroad. Most of the route is now a rail trail, but a small part remains as an industrial line in Northampton. |
| ORER September 1899 is a facsimile of the Equipment Register in a single PDF document. It has a extensive set of bookmark hyperlinks for easy navigation. The efficient navigation and completeness of the document make it superior to any similar e-books. |
| Pennsylvania Power & Light Coal Cars (2010) is an illustrated roster of PPLX cars and also includes a variety of HELM and other non-PPLX cars used in PP&L trains. Although the fleet appeared rather uniform at first glance, a surprising number of oddities came to light while writing the book. PP&L was the first electric utility to have their own fleet of cars. This is an update of the original 2006 edition with 118 pages and over 250 photos including overhead views and coverage
of recently acquired rotary gondolas. |
| Philadelphia & Reading Freight Cars: 19th Century (traditional book, 1994) includes 94 pages of rosters, photographs, diagrams and drawings. This is the only comprehensive work available on Reading cars from this early time when the P&R was one of the biggest corporations, and for a while even the largest corporation in the world. |
| Philadelphia & Reading Freight Cars: 1900 to 1914 (traditional book, 1996) includes 120 pages of rosters, photographs, diagrams and drawings. It includes exquisite scale drawings of 19 different freight cars done especially for this book. The designs include several early steel and steel underframe cars built by Pressed Steel Car. |
| Pressed Steel Car Railcar Production (2014) includes 203 pages of production lists. The following contemporary builders are included: Austin-Western, Bettendorf, Illinois Car & Equipment, Koppel, Mt. Vernon Car & Manufacturing, Ralston Steel Car, Schoen Pressed Steel Car, United States Car, United States Rolling Stock, Western Steel Car & Foundry, and Western Wheeled Scraper. See Eric's Car of the Month page for free download. |
| Early Pullman Car Freight and Passenger Car Production (2010) is a detailed, 370 plus page listing of over 4,300 Pullman freight and passenger car orders from the 1860s until the end of 1911. A great amount of detail was added to the freight car information contained in Pullman-Standard Freight Car Production Including Predecessors. The passenger information is entirely new and includes cars built for Pullman service as well as those purchased by railroads and rapid transit lines.
An excellent aid in constructing early rosters. |
| Pullman-Standard Freight Car Production Including Predecessors (2002) is a detailed, 164-page listing of about 10,000 freight car orders from the 19th and 20th centuries. Pullman-Standard was the largest freight car builder from about 1940 to 1980. One predecessor, Standard Steel Car, was an important pioneer in steel car construction and Pressed Steel Car's main rival. The earliest material in this book has been revised and included in Early Pullman Car Freight and Passenger Car Production. |
| Pullman and Pullman Standard Passenger Car Production (2016) is a detailed, 106 page listing of passenger cars ordered from Pullman after 1911 and from Osgood Bradley both before and after operations were merged into Pullman Standard.
It is an excellent aid in constructing rosters. See Eric's Car of the Month page for free download. |
| Railbox 2006 (2006) is a complete, 163-page, pictorial roster of the Railbox fleet since 1974. The bright yellow box cars with black doors quickly became popular among rail fans. The travels of one car in particular appeared in rail fan literature. The novelty wore off after several years, but Railbox kept adding more cars through 1981. In 1983, a weak economy forced the distribution of about a quarter of the cars to the railroads which made up Railbox. Railbox started purchasing new cars
again in 2003. |
| RoadRailer— Triple Crown, Wabash National, and much more (2009) is a collection of RoadRailer rosters such as Triple Crown, Alliance, Amtrak, Clipper, CSX, Exel, Ice Cold Express, Schneider, Swift, TMM, and Union Pacific. Detailed historical coverage includes bi-modal trailers, adapters, and intermediate bogies. This greatly expanded book replaces Triple Crown Services 2006 and includes over 200 pages and 300 photographs. See a page
from the book or a featured Triple Crown trailer from the book. |
| Southern Railway Car Roster (2006) includes an illustrated roster of cars used from 1982 to 1991 and a guide to Norfolk Southern classification of Southern cars. This book includes 507 pages and 466 photographs. Cars with both traditional and transitional lettering arrangements are shown. |
| Southern Railway Car Roster/Southern to Norfolk Southern Renumbering (2006) covers the period from 1991 to present. The 96-page book has 82 photographs of former Southern cars relettered or repainted with NS initials, and includes a renumbering table. |
| Norfolk Southern Coal Gons 2005 (2010) is a contemporary pictorial roster of the Norfolk Southern coal gondola fleet. Gray Top Gons make up most of the fleet. While this design is well known, the roster had never been published in full detail before this book. All cars with NS and CR reporting marks are included in the 54 pages and 51 photographs which make up this book. This revised edition includes overhead views and recent orders. |
| T108 Tank Cars: Chemicals, Ethanol, and the Green Economy (2010) includes over 300 pages and 400 photos and is a listing of all general purpose tank cars with a capacity of 27,500 to 31,499 gallons built since 1965. Though once built primarily for the petrochemical industry, this type of tank car is now used mostly for ethanol and vegetable oils produced by agribusiness companies. Charts show the dramatic boom and bust caused by complex government sudsidies in the last 6 years. |
| Train Watcher's Primer (2008) is a beginners guide to the train watching hobby. It also includes information of interest to experienced rail fans. It describes the reasons why people are attracted to train watching and all the associated activities. Rail fans will find this a good book to lend to friends and relatives. |
| Trenton Works (2012) is an illustrated guide to the railcars built by Eastern Car, Dominion Steel, Hawker Siddeley, and Trenton Works from 1913 to 2007. It has 285 pages and 316 photographs. A complete production list includes dispositions. The photographs concentrate on cars built after 1960. Railcars built at Thunder Bay are included. |
| Trinity Freight Cars: Production from 1978 to 1984. (2015) is an illustrated guide to freight cars produced by Trinity Industries in the early years. Although most of these cars were covered hopped cars, gondola, open hopper and pulpwood cars are also represented.The book has 385 pages, over 300 photographs, and a complete production list. |
