Locomotive: Building an Eight-Wheeler

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In the 1830s, Americans fell in love with railroads and locomotives. Soon we were building the biggest, most powerful locomotives in the world. The steam locomotive became a symbol of American ingenuity and skill that our national poet, Walt Whitman, called an "emblem of motion and power - pulse of the continent." One of the most useful locomotives was a wood-burning 4-4-0, an eight-wheeler made for fast passenger service. The author explains how an eight-wheeler was built and takes the reader through the ...
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More About This Book

Overview

In the 1830s, Americans fell in love with railroads and locomotives. Soon we were building the biggest, most powerful locomotives in the world. The steam locomotive became a symbol of American ingenuity and skill that our national poet, Walt Whitman, called an "emblem of motion and power - pulse of the continent." One of the most useful locomotives was a wood-burning 4-4-0, an eight-wheeler made for fast passenger service. The author explains how an eight-wheeler was built and takes the reader through the construction process, from the draftsmen's first drawings to the beautifully crafted, perfectly tuned locomotive that steamed out of the shop with the sun glinting off her polished brass bell and whistle. The mechanical details are miraculously revealed in the illustrations, showing the skill and pride of the craftsmen who helped to build this great nation.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
In this companion volume to his Superpower: The Making of a Steam Locomotive, Weitzman turns to an earlier train--a wood-burning eight-wheeler made in the 1870s--and once again presents the process of its crafting through informative text and meticulous illustrations. Weitzman takes readers behind the scenes at the drafting room, where a master mechanic creates the custom plan for the locomotive on paper; the factory machine shop, where drill presses, lathes and planers bring the bulk of the locomotive's parts to life; the forge, the boiler shop and the foundry, where the locomotive's iron pieces are made; and the erecting shop, where hundreds of men take a week to bring all of the locomotive's components together into a working machine. Black-and-white pen-and-ink and pencil illustrations are painstakingly rendered, almost to a fault; their precise lines and lack of backgrounds could come across as stiff or remote to some young readers. While Weitzman's text is often engaging, the level of detail he provides (as well as the many locomotive terms he leaves undefined) makes his book best suited to those already struck by train-love. Ages 8-12. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Children's Literature - Charlie Wyman
The fabulous end-papers contain drawings of a train engine with the parts first listed in order of appearance on the engine and on the final papers in alphabetical order. The text describes how a train engine would have been built in 1870. Most of the work was undertaken by hand and while there were steam engines to power equipment, plenty of raw manpower and skilled labor was also required. The detailed pen and ink drawings depict the stages, machines and workman who created these gigantic engines that would haul freight and passengers across this vast country. Weitzman manages to covey quite a bit about the history of railroads in the United States as well as the pride and workmanship that went into the construction. Given the number of parts that were hand-made, it is amazing that a factory could produce an engine in eight weeks.
Library Journal
Gr 4-6-"The year is 1870, just a few months after laborers complete the transcontinental railroad....New routes require more equipment, and factories are turning out a locomotive every two days." Weitzman offers finely crafted black-and-white drawings in pen and ink and pencil to illustrate the two busy days factory workers spend manufacturing a "wood-burning 4-4-0, an eight-wheeler made for rapid passenger service." The handsome picture book begins with a double-spread diagram labeling 70 different parts of the locomotive followed by an engaging commentary on trains and railroading in the 19th century. This leads into a discussion of the factory itself and how the equipment was used. Descriptions of how each unit of the train was made become a bit dry and technical, and many pages go by before readers actually see a locomotive. The striking black-and-white presentation of historical manufacturing is reminiscent of earlier books by Edwin Tunis and Leonard Everett Fisher; this volume would pair nicely with Fisher's The Railroads (Holiday, 1979; o.p.), which covers the broader context. The human work and craftsmanship involved are well conveyed. The book will be enjoyed most by readers with a strong mechanical bent. Libraries may also find uses for it as a source on the Industrial Age as well as on railroad history.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Precise draftsmanship of numbered charts and steps make this book from Weitzman (Old Ironsides, 1997) a bull's-eye for meeting the desires of both railroad buffs and the mechanically inclined. Shifting his focus from the waterways to the rails, the author places his detailed procedural information in historical perspective, opening with a brief discussion of the birth of the railroads in 1830, when Peter Cooper's steam locomotive, Tom Thumb, lost a race to a horse; moving on through the ensuing four decades, when the manufacture of locomotives was an exuberant cottage industry; and continuing through the 1870s, when all that activity culminated in America's becoming the worldwide leader in the industry, and steam engines replaced water wheels. Following that is a description of the orderly and precise assembly of the various parts of an eight-wheel locomotive, an explanation of the drafting and crafting of mechanical metallic parts, and coverage of the somehow humanizing process of building the little wooden cab in which the engineer and fireman lived during their long hauls over the rails. With the black-and-white renderings full of intricate detail, this is a fine addition to historical collections. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780395696873
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade & Reference Publishers
  • Publication date: 9/27/1999
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 40
  • Age range: 8 - 12 Years
  • Product dimensions: 11.59 (w) x 9.29 (h) x 0.36 (d)

Meet the Author

David Weitzman is the author and illustrator of OLD IRONSIDES, POURING IRON, and SUPERPOWER, a book about locomotives for adults. He lives in the mountains of northern California.
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