The Scale Drawings series began as a project after a tour of the remnants of the “Little, Old & Slow”, where my friends, Brian and Martha Hough, showed my wife and me the former pathway of the railroad. The defunct railroad’s real names were the Peach Bottom Railway, and later, the Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railroad. One of the few remaining stations was at Dorsey, near the Susquehanna River, in southern Fulton Township, Lancaster County, Pa. This building was, and is, in terrible shape and I decided information about it needed to be gathered, while it was still possible.
The small building was measured and turned into a computer drawing, using a program called Auto Sketch. This program allowed drawings to be printed accurately to the chosen scale of the drawing. Next, I tackled the two warehouses at the Robert Fulton Birthplace (also called Fulton House) and the granary warehouse at Eldora Station.
I began to examine photographs to see if I could get enough information to produce accurate drawings. This turned to be possible and opened the flood gate which allowed me to finish Volume One and to continue drawing, using real measurements, when I could, and scaling from photographs, when I had no other choice. Newspapers clippings also contributed measurements of some of the buildings.
I decided to print and bind the books myself. I doubt that it saved money, in fact, it probably cost more, but it saved me the hassle of trial and error printing and rescaling drawings to print accurately, which I later had to do when I was rebuilding the books and using professional printers. All the editions are now spiral bound and professionally printed in the USA.
To date, there are four volumes in the series, with Volume Four including several drawings and articles about the railroad cars, by my co-author of that book, Bob Bruce. While I am pleased with all the books, several of the drawings in Volume Four were quite a challenge and between being happy with overcoming those challenges and the addition of Bob Bruce’s brilliant drawings, this latest book is my current favorite.
As there are many Pennsylvania Railroad fans in the world, it should be noted that several of the scale drawings in these books are stations or buildings along that railroad, which met the “Little, Old & Slow” at three locations, Oxford, Peach Bottom and Quarryville. These buildings are noted as being on the P.R.R. in the contents lists.