Return to Table of Contents

Who & Why

The book, Locomotive Number 60,000, was my father's, and was used during his days at CalTech for some course work that he was pursueing. When my brothers and I were children, we got hold of the book somehow, and did much "improvement" in the form of pencil drawings. The original book still carries many additions to this day.

Approximately 15 years ago, I met and got to know Bruce Greenburg of Greenburg Publishing, and one day mentioned this publication to see if he would be interested in re-printing it. He was interested, and I loaned the book to him for a period of a year or so. During the time, Greenburg Publishing Company was a very small operation, specializing in toy train publications. When Bruce realized the expenses, he felt he could not afford to do the re-print, because he felt he did not have the market for a "REAL TRAIN BOOK". His market was my cup of tea. I am a collector/operator of Lionel Trains.

For a period of at least 10 years, the book was gathering dust on my bookshelf, and this summer, one of my younger brothers asked me if I still had the book. He said he definately wanted to try to get it from me. I thought about that request, and am afraid I don't want to relinquish the book.

However, at my work, we are doing more and more graphics work with papers being published, and I had the tools to digitize the book in two portions- text and graphics. We are working with the new version of WordPerfect and I figured this would be a good way to learn how many of its options perform. So, I started the digitizing progress.

During this time, the messages came out about the fiction from the thirties came out on the Railroad List, and several people recommended that reprinting be accomplished before Congress changed the copyright laws. That prompted me to finish the task, and I had a thought that the Railroad List subscribers would be interested in being able to access this information. I contacted Dan Dawdy about making it available if I could get the parts to him. He felt it was something that would be accepted by the Railroad List members, and offered to make it available on the Cyberspace World Railroad.

The rest is history. From the world of toy trains comes a piece of history about a locomotive that discusses the design and construction of one Iron Horse. I have enjoyed doing this project, and I hope the Railroad Buffs make good use of a book that otherwise might not be available to all.

Enjoy, and happy steaming!