An appreciation: Railway Prototype Cyclopedias

Most prototype-oriented modelers are well aware of the superb series of documents, produced almost entirely by Pat Wider and Ed Hawkins, called the Railway Prototype Cyclopedias. The series stands at 36 volumes, and is perhaps at an end, though I don’t know for sure if that’s the case. These are simply outstanding collections of mechanical history for both freight and passenger cars (strong emphasis on the former), with excellent arrays of prototype photographs. 

The historic Volume 1 of this series, issued in 1997 (cover shown below) contained articles by a number of people, including Richard Hendrickson on Santa Fe 4-6-2s; in later years, articles were almost entirely by Wider and Hawkins. These have all been 8.5 x 11-inch soft-cover books, with covers of varied colors, and of varied numbers of pages. Volume 1 had 96 pages. 

Turning toward the apparent end of the series, I show below the cover of RPC 35, dated 2020. This one contains 385 pages, larger than most volumes. The topics covered in each RPC volume are listed on the cover, as you see here.

The latest of these volumes, and as I stated, perhaps the last, is RPC 36, formatted much like all the others and again, 385 pages.

This volume, like all of them, contains a remarkable amount of photo coverage of the subjects, almost always from every railroad that owned the particular design under discussion. I can think of no other source that even comes close to this breadth. And they are reproduced at full page width, permitting examination of details, including lettering.

To choose just one of the really innumerable excellent photos in these volumes, I show below a good example, well lit so that details of the car body and equipment can be readily seen. This is from page 251 in RPC 36, and shows an AC&F builder photo of Illinois Central box car 19363, built in January 1940 as part of a 500-car order.

The photo can readily be interpreted to show the wood running board, Ajax power hand brakes, Youngstown corrugated door with Camel roller lifters, and National Type B trucks. Not very evident in the photo but described in the caption are the Murphy rectangular-panel roof and the square-corner Dreadnaught ends. Note also that the car is stenciled for 40-ton capacity, not the usual 50 tons for these cars, a standard IC practice of the time.

Together, these two volume comprise a really astonishing collection of hundreds and hundreds of prototype photos of the biggest standard car of the 20th century, the 1937 AAR box car and its variations. If they represent the end point, they are a fitting conclusion to a truly superb set of reference documents.

Tony Thompson