Customer Reviews

Uncle Sam's Locomotives: The USRA and the Nation's Railroads (Railroads Past and Present)

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This book purports to account for USRA and derivative equipment, and does a decent job of that. It is, however, completely joyless to read. The author complains time after time about poor and conflicting recordkeeping on the part of the builders and railroads about where the equipment actually went. Enough already-- a single disclaimer in the foreword or introduction (amply provided) would have sufficed! The author also takes a strong advocacy position in favor of the USRA designs, and completely dismisses the objections of the railroads. This may be justifiable in most cases, but what about the cases where the design really was flawed? And why must the reader be subjected to the author's defensive handwringing on this point so many times?
Bottom line-- if you absolutely need a reference work on USRA equipment (but primarily in an accounting sense, and much less so in a technical sense), then buy the book. But don't expect to enjoy it.

This book concerns itself with the USRA-designed steam locomotives built in 1918-1920 (though not with the copies of those designs built from 1920 onwards). There is a brief introduction explaining why the USRA was necessary as well. The author devotes a chapter to each wheel arrangement, setting forth the existing designs that might have served as precedents and adding without elaboration the railroads' comments on the engines' performance.

The style is rather dry and academic but at the same time there is more material on this subject here than in any other single book. Apparently accurate data is hard to come by, but it would have been nice to see production broken out by builder and type as well as allocation. The absence of this data is the book's most serious fault.

The book includes a large number of interesting photographs. All in all, not perfect but a worthwhile purchase for anyone interested in this era.