This softcover, perfectbound, 570-page reference book is an index for modeling Baltimore and Ohio locomotives. So, there are no photos therein, and only text. This is not a history book about the B&O, so it’s not the type of publication you’d sit down with a good cup of coffee and immerse yourself in B&O passenger trains and routes, stations and freight equipment. What it is, however, is a complete overview of where you can locate extensive B&O steam and diesel locomotive roster information for the last 87 years. Obviously, the railroad ordered numerous steam and diesel engines throughout its long history, and dozens of model and prototype publications have carried photos and information about them within their pages over the years.
How would you find all this information? Surprisingly, author Smith has undertaken a mammoth job to record when and where this information was published. The list includes 294 publications such as magazines, books, club newsletters, and calendars. In the steam locomotive section, he gives the class of engine, road number, type of engine, publication it appeared in, page and/or volume number, a perspective from where the photo was taken (left or right angle shot, tender-only, front, etc.) and last, the date of the publication in which the photo appeared. All the information is laid out on the pages as spreadsheets. The mammoth book also includes references to photos from the 1957 B&O locomotive re-numbering project. There are about 17,000 data entries in the book. At the end is a detailed list of commercial models that were made of B&O engines through the years in HO, S, and O scales. This model data includes the class of locomotive, model builder, brass or plastic, year model was built if known and if a steam engine, the wheel arrangement.
It took years of work to compile these extensive listings so railfans and modelers can locate the B&O information they are looking for, if they have the reference books and magazines mentioned. The information-gathering project for the book started in the mid-1980s, and author Greg Smith is now planning for a second volume for those modeling Baltimore and Ohio locomotives.
By Gregory M. Smith, published by Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Historical Society, Sykesville, Md., $53.95
