Ephemera & More, August 2022
Lot 92:
A one of a kind loose leaf notebook of 72 typed pages, circa 1930, compiled likely over a span of years by a locomotive collector/researcher residing in South Portland, Maine in the 1920’s-1960’s. This notebook details every locomotive name, alphabetized from A to Z, that existed (or at least that he could find) from the dawn of steam, 1827, through the 1920’s (latest date I saw was 1937). I estimate roughly 2,300 different locomotives are listed in this tremendous archive, given that there are 73 pages with about 30 per page roughly. He typed up every page and put the archive into an easy to use 7 x 9 inch loose leaf notebook-must have taken months. The railroads include the earliest English trains and go all the way out to California, so the record is broad based for sure.
The best part about it is that it provides a great deal of information on the locomotive- there is the name and number of the locomotive, the railroad it ran on, the wheel configuration, the builder, and the year it was first in use. This is the type of information that cannot easily be obtained today- he had access to hundreds of 1800’s era Railroad guides, magazines, reports, books, etc- all in his personal collection that is now mostly gone. Most of the entries are from the 1800’s- I would say over 85% of the 73 pages document the earlier years of the Age of Steam, 1827-1890 or thereabouts. Who knew there were that many different names of trains??!!
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