George B. Trumbull's ink/watercolor locomotive drawings
Is anyone familiar with "George B. Trumbull's ink/watercolor drawings of train engines"? We have received an inquiry from a person who has three of them and would like to know a little more about him.
The following website shows a "George B. Trumbull ... Group of studies of seven American locomotives of the late 19th Century ... Both passenger and freight locomotives ... various railways ... 1895-96, ... Pen and ink, watercolor on paper, 7 1/2 x 17 inches ... "
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 10:19 AM
16 Comments:
Additional comment:
My three drawings are about the same date, 1894, and include a CPRR locomotive. The drawings are signed, "Designed by Geo. B. Trumbull." I wondered if the "designed" actually meant anything. I also don't know if Trumbull is drawing locomotives of the past or what would have been modern locomotives in the 1890s.
See the George B. Trumbull CPRR engine drawing, "Fast Freight Locomotive," detail, 1894.
From: "Chris Graves" caliron@cwnet.com
He is not listed in ASK ART, nor did he die in California after 1905.
—Chris
From: kylewyatt@aol.com
The drawings are clearly of locomotives of the mid 1890s. That I can say off hand.
—Kyle
See:
"TRUMBULL, GEORGE B., illustrator
Three original pencil, pen and ink and watercolor drawings of Central Pacific locomotives and coal cars
N.p., 1894. 4 1/2 x 13 1/2" (each, approximate). Three original drawings at different stages of development. The first drawing, 'High Speed Passsenger Locomotive,' is finished; the locomotive in the second drawing, 'Fast Freight Locomotive,' is finished, the coal car is pencilled in; the third drawing is mostly in pencil with parts of the locomotive in watercolor and is not captioned. The first two drawings are signed and dated by the artist. Matted, glazed, and framed."
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dick Dawson
In the field of engineering, the expression "designed by" has a definite meaning. It refers to the person who determined what the configuration of the item in question is to be, in terms of the sizes, locations, and interrelations of the various parts of the whole. Thus, we talk about the Lima A1 demonstrator 2-8-4 being designed by Lima's V.P. of Engineering Will Woodard, or the LNER A3 Pacifics being designed by Nigel Gresley. Until I saw the collection of seven prints of locomotives of different railroads, I even considered the possibility that the locomotive in question might have been designed by George Trumbull and the drawing may have been made by someone else. I am not familiar with Mr. Trumbull's work, but he would certainly not have designed all the locomotives in the second set of seven drawings. That takes us back to the likelihood that Mr. Trumbull "drew" the locomotives, but did not "design" them.
As to the last question, the car behind a locomotive carrying its wood or coal (and, more importantly, its water) is called a tender.
—Dick Dawson
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: Andrew Dow
I concur entirely with Dick Dawson. In Great Britain it was, during days of steam but not since, a common courtesy to acknowledge the name of the Chief Mechanical Engineer (or sometimes, if such was the title, the Locomotive Superintendent) of a railway company when discussing the design of a particular locomotive. And although the CME was indeed responsible for outlining what to day we would call the specification and principal features, the task of producing the drawings fell to the Chief Draughtsman.
He in turn had little choice over many aspects of design: the load gauge, the incorporation of established design practices in the creation of the drawings, and the use of standard parts were all determined in advance unless there was a particular reason for departing from these norms. In addition, if there were specific problems out on the road, such as a weight limit on a particular bridge on one of the routes that the new locomotives were to operate, it fell to the draughtsman to meet those restrictions.
If some of the requirements could not be met, the CME would be called in to decide, or perhaps go to the civil engineer to recommend that the bridge be strengthened or replaced, and of course the traffic costs and benefits of so doing would be examined. The locomotive is part of a complex machine, and no designer is an island.
—Andrew Dow
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: Thomas L. De Fazio
First, let me suggest readings in some books and in (at least) one of our own [Railroad & Locomotive Historical Society] Bulletins:
J. N. Westwood, "Locomotive Designers in the Age of Steam"
Brian Hollingsworth, "Steam Passenger Locomotives"
Frederick Westing, "Apex of the Atlantics"
Angus Sinclair, "Development of the locomotive engine;" annotated edition prepared by John H. White, Jr
"Elliott's Engines on the Reading," by F. Westing, Bull R&LHS #97/pp.56-57
(If necessary, you may want to be on good terms with the interlibrary loan desk of your local library.)
The first two books are admittedly British but they both have a world-wide purview and will answer many of your questions. The third book will give you an idea of the method of creation of a PRR locomotive, ca. 1910: its design; its fuller development. The last book, updated to the end of steam by John White, seems largely oriented toward American steam, and if I recall right, the annotations have both some omissions and some lack of engineering perspective.
Just as in England, France, Italy and elsewhere, the USA had many substantial individual contributors and designers, as well as teams that addressed the full development of a designed locomotive. It is foolhardy for me to be substantially more specific; I would only be tempted to rewrite the above references, and many, many others. Even were I to start naming names, the list would grow long.
—Tom
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: KyleWyatt@aol.com
I'm not sure (and my reference books are temporarily packed in a storage locker), but it is possible that the George B. Trumbull CPRR engine drawing might be of a Canadian Pacific locomotive instead of a Central Pacific loco.
—Kyle Wyatt
From: "Heise Huntington" zandhbooks@midmaine.com
... a word of thanks to you, the museum, and "correspondents" ... for assistance, information, and corrections.
It's always a pleasure to try to assist the rare individual who has the interest and integrity to want to get all the historical details correct in what they write.
"C.P.R.R." is on the cab.
—Heise Huntington
From: kylewyatt@aol.com
A very similar relationship has been documented between A. J. Stevens (General Master Mechanic of Central Pacific and later Southern Pacific, 1870-1888) and his chief draftsman, George Stoddard. Common practice out here does give Stevens acknowledgement for his innovative locomotive designs. But that practice has not held true for Stevens' successors in common usage. There is some recognition of some specific 20th century Southern Pacific designs being associated with individuals, but that identification is not generally in common usage.
—Kyle Wyatt
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: kylewyatt@aol.com
My copies are buried in a storage locker at the moment. I seem to recall it was SHOT that discussed the engineering, and SIA that discussed Sellers drawings, but I could easily be mistaken. But since both articles are excellent and facinating, you can't go wrong.
—Kyle
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: kylewyatt@aol.com
I came across the reference to the Society for Industrial Archeology article on Sellers:
"William Sellers and the Rationalization of Mechanical Engineering," by John K. Brown, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1999).
—Kyle
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
From: kylewyatt@aol.com
Some time ago I mentioned two articles by John Brown. One was a close look at the Sellers drawings, while the other discussed the different drawings room and engineering traditions in Britain and America.
The first appeared in IA - the journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology.
"When Machines became Gray and Drawings Black and White: William Sellers and the Rationalization of Mechanical Engineering", Volume 25, Number 2, 1999, pp 29-54
The second appeared in Technology & Culture - the journal for the Society
for the History of Technology.
"Design Plans, Working Drawings, National Styles: Engineering Practice in Great Britain and the United States, 1775-1945", Volume 41, Number 2, April 2000, pp. 195-238. An excerpt appears [online].
Some interesting comentary on the article by Konig, Wolfgang 1949-
"Communications", Technology and Culture - Volume 41, Number 4, October 2000, pp. 857-861, is excerpted.
Brown also received an award for this article, scroll to pg 10.
More on Brown himself can be found [here].
—Kyle Wyatt
[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]
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