Specialty Blenders of Heritage Lubricants

BOOK REVIEW

THE END OF STEAM
By William L. Petitjean, P.E.
Published by William L. Petitjean, P.E., Inc.
Softback, 8 1/2" x 11", 28 pages plus glossary

Little River Press (now out of business) continues to be the place to get "the true grit" of steam locomotive design and operation, both for lay readers and for seasoned operators.  Long-out-of-print standard reference books from the steam era, old (and some new) design treatises, authentic manuals on operating and steam shop practices, and many other titles are in LRP's catalog.  Instead of various writers' interpretations and opinions about historical steam, what one finds are primary sources that are essential for gaining a valid understanding of steam and how it works in locomotives, both historically and in present day operations.

Publishing or reprinting these treasures for today's tiny audience for authentic steam references isn't cheap.  The End of Steam is no exception.  A price of $29 for a small paperback seems exorbitant.  But if one wants a genuine understanding of the most basic reasons for steam locomotion's demise -- as well as an understanding of how close the "modern" steam locomotive came to reaching its fundamental performance limits -- this is unquestionably the book.  It provides a basic framework from which all of one's other reading about steam locomotives and their design can begin.  If you read William Petitjean's series of articles a decade ago in the now-departed and much mourned Locomotive and Railway Preservation magazine this book will sound familiar to you, because it develops the themes that he put forth there.

As one of the principal designers on the ACE 3000 project and author the 1974 article "Did We Scrap Steam Too Soon?" in Trains magazine, not to mention decades of running and firing steam on both main lines and branches, I know firsthand whereof Bill Petitjean writes.  There's no axe grinding in his book, just the basic science written for the curious lay reader.

William L. Whithuhn, Smithsonian Institution
National Railway Historical Society's "Railroad History"

Webmaster's note:  Mr. Whithuhn's references to Little River Press as the publisher of The End of Steam are no longer accurate as Little River Press went out of business in 2003.  We have taken this book back and are now offering it as a self published work.  All copyrights remain with William L. Petitjean.