Handbook of Railroad Construction for the Use of American Engineers

Vose, George L. (George Leonard), 1831-1910Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.2
Word count
753K words
Chapters
76

Tags

English Originals Industrial Technology Historical ReappraisalEngineering PracticeRailway ConstructionStep-by-Step GuidePractical GuideTechnical ManualCase AnalysisSelf-Study Guide19th CenturyAmerican Engineering

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Handbook of Railroad Construction; For the use of American engineers. by Vose Author: Vose, George L. (George Leonard), 1831-1910, Language: English, Class: TF: Technology: Railroad engineering and operation, Release Date: Mar 6, 2018

Editor's review

This book is a 19th-century handbook of railroad construction written by the American engineer George L. Vose for American practitioners, systematically covering such fundamentals of railroad engineering as route selection, roadbed, track, bridges, and construction organization, and reflecting the knowledge system and engineering standards of the steam age. Its value lies first at the level of technological history: readers can observe the educational scope, methods of calculation, and material concepts of 19th-century American railroad engineering, and understand the origins of modern railroad engineering terminology and methods. The Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic edition is easy to search and cite, and is suitable as primary material for research in engineering history, transport history, and technical literature. Note that the standards, units, and construction methods in the book are historical; they cannot be used directly for contemporary design and construction, and reading should be paired with modern engineering textbooks and historical annotations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents to build a knowledge framework, then read in blocks by topic such as route selection, roadbed, and track。
  2. Prepare a modern railroad engineering textbook for comparison of terminology and methods, and note historical standards and contemporary differences。
  3. Excerpt typical calculations and structural descriptions, and organize them into notes or thematic cards on technological history。
  4. Read alongside background material on American railroad history to understand the handbook's intended audience and the needs of its era。

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
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  51. 51
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  60. 60
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  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
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FAQ

Can this handbook be used for railroad construction today? It cannot be used directly. The book reflects the standards, materials, and methods of 19th-century American railroad engineering, which differ greatly from current codes. Its value lies in technological history and documentary research, not contemporary construction guidance; for engineering reference, consult current codes and new textbooks.
Can someone without an engineering background understand it? With difficulty. The handbook was written for American engineers of its time and assumes readers have basic knowledge of surveying, materials, and construction, and it is written in technical English. General readers can start with a general history of railroads, then read the conceptual chapters in the table of contents, rather than plowing through page by page from the beginning.
What is the public-domain electronic edition suitable for? It is suitable for searching keywords, checking terminology, and excerpting original text, and also for textual analysis in technological history. Because the layout is plain and there are no modern annotations, for close reading it is advisable to build your own glossary and compare with modern textbooks to avoid misreading historical methods.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Vose, George L. (George Leonard), 1831-1910 Author

George L. Vose (1831–1910) was an American author in the field of engineering, though public information about the details of his life is quite limited. Two of his works are held in this collection: Bridge Disasters in America: The Cause and the Remedy, which discusses the causes of bridge failures and possible improvements, and Handbook of Railroad Construction, addressed to American engineers and offering practical guidance on railway engineering. His writing focuses on engineering practice and public safety, with a direct style aimed at professional readers and an emphasis on technical problems and their real-world applications. The two works deal with bridge safety and railway construction respectively, reflecting his sustained attention to the practical problems of nineteenth-century American transport engineering and offering some reference value for understanding engineering practice and safety debates of the period.