Trains are one of those set pieces that don’t get used often anymore and reference for early period trains isn’t always easy to find. My train reference usually gets buried on a back shelf of my library and I have to unearth it when a design comes along that involves a train car or a scene that requires recreating railroad scenes.

These two books are the most complete that I’ve found when I need to create details for a train car build or most any other information on late 19th to early 20th century railroad systems.

The first is The Car-Builders Dictionary, which is now in a digital format. It’s a 680 page book that includes pretty much anything I have ever needed to know about railroad cars of that period. The book includes a 200 page glossary as well as scale drawings and perspective views of almost all passenger and freight cars, including street cars, both American and English.

A similar book which focuses more on freight cars is the 1919 Car Builder’s Dictionary and Cyclopedia.

There are scale drawings, plans, and sections of cars to show construction and layout. There are also photographs of car interiors, and detailed illustrations of every part on the cars, both functional and cosmetic: seating, hardware, brake diagrams, truck construction, lighting, etc.

For everything else railroad related, I’d recommend the I.C.S. Reference Library, Vol. 133_Railroads, 1908. This is a 800+ page manual that covers the infrastructure of railroads, including track design and layout, covering standard track schematics, bridges, rail specs, buildings, service facilities, and sections on road and highway construction, and city surveying and survey drawings.