Sharing railroad history and model railroading knowhow since 2000
Named steam locomotives of North America
One of my long-time research projects has been to collect a list of all named steam locomotives that have operated in North American nations. I began collecting the names and basic information about the locomotives some time in the mid 1980s, long before I had an internet connection. The names were stored in a simple MS-Word (version 2!) file and added to through the mid 1990s. The project took a back seat to life for a while from then until a couple years ago, and now it's time to show off the work to the world.
Because of the way that the data was collected, a number of abbreviations were used in many of the data columns. The abbreviation lists are a bit shorter than the roster, and there are most assuredly quite a few locomotives that are not yet included in this list. It will take a while for me to go through and make the format conversions needed so the data can be displayed here. Also, these pages will be expanded and updated as new material is researched.
One place where I did not use any abbreviations is in the locomotive name column. In this case, I've tried to find the way that the locomotive name is actually written on the locomotive itself and presented that information in the database. If a word is not abbreviated on the locomotive side, it is not abbreviated here, even if published rosters choose to list the name in an abbreviated format.
How can you help? As I mentioned above, there is still a large number of locomotives that aren't included in this list yet. If you have additions or corrections to any of this data, please send it. I'm also looking for photographs of these locomotives that are free to use. In an ideal world, we'd have a photograph of every locomotive in this list, but I know that will not be possible with quite a few of these locomotives. If you have any free images that you would like to share, please let me know. Thanks.
This project would not have gotten as far as it did if it weren't for the help of the woman who became my wife in 1992, Jennifer.
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