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Reviews
| Trains and Technology: The American Railroad in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, Cars. By Anthony J. Bianculli. Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 2002. 254 pp., 225+ illus. and diags., notes, bibl., index. $65.00 hb (ISBN 0-87413-730-6).
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Continuing directly from a discussion of 19th-century locomotives presented as volume 1 of The American Railroad in the Nineteenth Century, Anthony Bianculli here gives us a thorough, complete, accessible, and understandable technical history of the development and use of railroad cars from the beginning of American railroads in the 1820s to the first decade of the 20th century. Drawing on primary sources (such as builder's records, 19th-century trade journals, and patents) and making good use of previous studies (such as John H. White's The American Railroad Freight Car and The American Railroad Passenger Car), Bianculli constructs an interesting narrative of a subject that, with the exception of White's work, I have seen presented only in dry and very technical terms.
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Bianculli follows the development, in major subsections of this book, of passenger cars (including coaches, emigrant cars, sleeping cars, dining cars, parlor cars, railway post office cars, and baggage or express cars), of freight cars (including boxcars, stock cars, flat cars, gondola and hopper cars, tank cars, refrigerator cars and cabooses), and of nonrevenue cars (in work trains, ballast service, snow plowing, general maintenance of way, handcars, and speeders). Many of these stories are enlivened by discussions of oddball cars or failed experiments, such as the grain cars developed midway through the 19th century that stored grain in huge cylinders that rolled along the track like car's wheels (pp. 113–15, figures 2.17, 2.18).
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2
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The volume concludes with concise yet thorough discussions of the development of the truck and wheel, brake, and coupler technologies that made railroading work. Bianculli is especially strong in explaining how these technologies developed in response to specific technical problems, such as the increase in the weight and speed of passenger trains during the 1890s or the interaction of railroad technology with changes in the uses of railroads, such as the dreadful human toll wreaked among brakemen by link-and-pin couplers after the Civil War. He describes, for example, how the development of interchange service first required a standard coupler, then led to an increased number of coupling operations as more cars were interchanged, each one of which put a brakeman's fingers, arms, and legs at risk. Thus the development of interchange service led to the adoption of link-and-pin couplers that required brakemen to step between cars, and the dangers of these couplers then led to their rapid replacement by Janney and other knuckle couplers, which were operated from the side of cars.
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Bianculli shows us railroads, in the guise (for this volume) of railroad cars as a component of a system, interacting vigorously with the society and economy that found them vitally necessary as the 19th century unfolded. I found that his exploration of these social and economic contexts for railroad-car development enlivened a usually dry and technical subject. Like White, Bianculli manages to explain, not just describe, the development of the 19th-century railroad car.
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4
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In general, this book has been produced quite well by the University of Delaware Press. The large format (8.5 by 11 inches) in double columns allows for easy reading and provides a good layout for the extensive illustrations found throughout the book. The notes, bibliography, and index are comprehensive. All of the line drawings and some of the photographs are clear, well organized, and easy to understand. The one consistent flaw in this book, however, is the reproduction quality on almost all of the historical diagrams and some of the historical photographs. It appears that these illustrations, especially those copied from original lithographs, were produced by a digital scanner or a photocopier, rather than by photography. This has resulted in muddy diagrams and in details or number and letter keys within these drawings disappearing into what were, originally, gray or shaded areas within these pictures. The fact that these diagrams and drawings appear to be selected quite well, and that they would have illustrated the text appropriately, if only they could be seen clearly, increases the reader's irritation at this unfortunate but consistent flaw in an otherwise fine book.
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5
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| With the exception of these illustrations, Trains and Technology: The American Railroad in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2, Cars, is well worth the reader's time and well worth the rather modest price for a work of such complete and thorough research. The historian, the archaeologist, and the rail fan who would like to know more about the first development of train cars as one of the bases of railroad technology and practice would do well to give this book every attention. Personally, I am looking forward to reading volume 1 to learn something new about 19th-century locomotives from a most useful source. |
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