Railroad Steam Diesel History Erie Power Berkshire Locomotives Signed Staufer

by Alvin E. Staufer, Edward L. May

$61 · Offered by eBay · No longer available

First edition · Signed

.no-subscribe { display: none} [contenteditable] { pointer-events: none; } ERIE POWER: Steam and Diesel Locomotives of the Erie Railroad from 1840 to 1970 by FRED WESTING and ALVIN F. STAUFER Published by A. F. Staufer, 1970. First Edition, signed by Alvin Staufer on front free endpaper. Very good hardcover in very good dustjacket. Tight binding, solid spine, clean unmarked text. 4to, illustrated, 448 pages. The Erie Railroad was built to an extravagant six-foot gauge in 1848, a protective measure meant to prevent interchange with competing lines and jealously guard New York's commercial interests, but this technological hubris would haunt the company for decades as it struggled with conversion costs and financial mismanagement. Fred Westing was a prolific railroad author whose command of steam locomotive history produced classics like Apex of the Atlantics and The Locomotives That Baldwin Built, while working alongside Staufer, who would later establish himself as America's preeminent locomotive historian. Together they crafted this definitive chronicle of Erie motive power spanning 130 years, from wood-burning 4-4-0s through the legendary fleet of 105 Berkshire 2-8-4s that transformed the railroad from a plodding drag freight operation into a fast freight contender. The Erie ordered the most Berkshires of any American railroad, purchasing from all three major builders—ALCO, Lima, and Baldwin—between 1927 and 1929, with 70-inch drivers that revolutionized their freight opera

• Publisher: Staufer Books & Prints
• Year: 1981
• Binding: Hardcover
• ISBN: 0944513026
• Condition: Very Good

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