Listings of Tom's Books, Publications, Papers, Articles, Terms with Definitions, and Diagrams with Citations
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        I think that I have the most complete steam library in the country.  There are over 600 titles with many of the books having duplicates.  Most of the books are engineering books from the turn of the century, the last one, to the mid-1930’s when steam was no longer taught in engineering school. 

        Libraries are throwing these books out and so most of them are available on the used book market. 

 The classic books are MacNaught-on “Elementary Steam Power Engineering and Barnard, Ellenwood, & Hirshfield “Heat Power Engineering and Allen & Bursley “Heat Engines” and Gebhart “Steam Power Plant Engineering”. The list goes on.  They all have T/S diagrams and explain entropy. There are books on combustion, heat exchange, fluid flow, steam generation, condensation, and all manner of engines and valves.  With steam we have a choice of 7 different valve types.  There are books on trains, airplanes, boats, early 19th century steam buses, and the Stanley Brothers.  I have the two best books: Stumpf and T. Allen, on uniflow engine design. 

        In periodicals, there are the publications of the Steam Automobile Club of America from 1958 to present, plus the Bolsover Brother’s periodical an then after this was sold to John Walton, all of his work, and then the split away California club publication, Steam Power Quarterly, Steam Calliope,  and more currently the two British steam car club publications and a smattering of steamboat things. 

        There are books on pure thermodynamics and on the steam tables.  There is Marcus C. Inman Hunter’s book on” Rotary Valve Engines” and Felix Wankel’s book on “Rotary Piston Machines”.  There are biographies of Herreschoff and Yarrow.  It is nearly a complete library and it is open to anyone interested in steam power.

August 22, 2012    Kimmel Steam Website  Library

        The books in my library are important.  They have taken years to acquire, and mostly because I did not know the names of them.  These days the engineering steam books are available on the used book internet market because libraries are throwing them out with abandon.  What is more important because it is much more difficult to obtain are the many technical papers, essays, patents, and personal letters, all containing important steam information.

       My collection started with Karl Petersen asking me to pick up some boxes of papers from Ed Gibbs, son of the late R.A. Gibbs, second president of the steam club.  These were in Greensboro, North Carolina and I thought they were to be transported to Karl’s care, at that time in Peoria.  Karl told me to keep them and he has expressed little desire to take custody of them since.  These papers consisted mostly of the files kept by Bob Lyon, the first steam club president, who was in the banking business in Chicago and who knew how to file.  Thus I have every personal letter; receipt of club dues, note of complaint when the club publication was late, and original photos from early steam meets.  Besides historical information there is a great amount of technical knowledge preserved. 

        Once I had that collection of twenty boxes of material the rest of the collecting happened.  The widow of the late Bill Seiple offered Bill’s library.  Bill had attended almost every meet taking videos of the talks.   Then when I visited Doug Garner who had been a NASA engineer in Norfolk, Virginia where he had collected every government publication offered on steam he said his library was taking up part of his garage and he would ship it to me for the cost of postage.  Doug had most of the technical reports coming out of government sponsored work done during the clean air/anti-smog years of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  As an aside, the OPEC oil embargo from October 1973-March 1974 stopped all government sponsored Rankine Cycle steam work.  The emphasis after that was on fuel economy in vehicles and not on clean air.  Tom Stoecker gave me copies of extensive correspondence he had with Harry M. Arnold of Douglas, Wyoming who worked under the name Steam Engine Research.  From 1940 to 1963 Arnold was issued 9 patents on high temperature steam engines.

       Bill Cartland of Jupiter, Florida had worked on steam most of his life and his widow shipped me his library.  Richard French of Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania let me go through his many file cabinets in the basement sorting out all steam stuff.  Richard started rebuilding Stanleys after the war and under the tutelage of Earle Eckel and Hyde Ballard.  Later, his widow gave me his photo albums.  Ken Kowal gave me most of the literature he had collected in Southern California including much of Wendell Mason’s correspondence.  Richard Moore gave his collection of mostly steam publications and brochures to Jim Tangeman who passed several boxes of it on to me.  David Norton, who had worked on both the Bill Lear and the SPS/Dutcher steam projects had saved a lot of photos and other information from those and gave them to me.  Richard Moser had some things left from his time with Bill Lear including a set of knife and fork connecting rods from the Deltic engine and some prints.

        Larry Rossett from Alberta, Canada gave his library to me through his children who were cleaning his house after his untimely death.  Roy Anderson Jr. gave me his father’s book rough drafts and many very fine India ink on vellum draftings.  A complete set of correspondence between Roland Giroux of Reno, Nevada and Mr. Reed of Michigan appeared in my collections.  Also a thick stack of letters from Stanley Allred of Warren, Indiana to Mr. Reed appeared.  Mr. Reed carried on a lengthy correspondence and he saved all of the letters written to him.  As they were answers to questions they are valuable themselves and without the other half of the correspondence.  Scott Haines brought me blueprints and papers from Al Reynolds’s house after his passing.  Ralph Emery gave me Walter Cousino’s papers and the prints for his very nice three cylinder oscillating engine.  Ed Blakeman’s son gave me his father’s steam collection when cleaning out the house.  I also got Ed’s Doble Triple that was a lot of metal fabricating work and used solenoids to actuate poppet valves.

        When the Williams brothers family home in Ambler, Pennsylvania was being sold I acquired 18 full sized file cabinets plus armloads of blueprints and their steam library.  Calvin and Charles Williams were careful to not disclose very much about their work during their lifetimes and it is all here.  They were remarkably well informed and corresponded with people all over the country and compulsively saved everything.  More recently Bill Hinote of California sent me his collection of steam papers.  Four years ago I cleaned out the Mobile Steam Society garage in Oak Ridge, Tennessee acquiring their library as well as boilers, VW, and test engine. 

        I scanned as much of Peter Scott-Brown’s collection as I could while visiting his widow, Joan, in Carson City, Nevada.  He had extensive correspondence with Marcus Lothrop and they both wrote very well.  Peter had worked with Abner Doble in the early 1950’s on the McCullough Paxton car.  Two days were spent scanning three thousand pages of Dave Nergaard’s notebooks.  Most of this information came from early steam automobile publications.  Jim and Marian Tangeman let me scan their photo albums from many steam club meets and steamboat meets.  Brian Fiedler let me scan the Richard J. Smith photo album showing much of his work. 

        Blueprints include the 1954 Lee Gaeke, working under the name SuperSteam out of Inkster, Michigan, Detrick engine, a very good looking modern engine.  I have the Chadwell O’Connor three cylinder boat engine blueprints that he made for Disney Land.  These were miniature Skinner engines and very well designed and made.  All of John Walton’s Light Steam Power blueprints were purchased when I visited him over on the Isle of Man.  Roy Anderson’s blueprints, for both size V-2 steam engines are on hand as well as his single cylinder boat engine. 

        Along the way there are personal letters from Richard Smith, Bill Besler, Abner Doble, and many other luminaries in the steam field.  Bill Cartland kept up steady correspondence the last few years of his life.  There are designs drawn freehand on paper of ideas that are almost lost.  It is all being slowly organized.  The problem is that a person has to look at all of it first to be then able to recognize the names and the steam projects when they go through it the second time.  It is all being stored in a dry heated steel building.---Tom Kimmel

Note: The files below are of listings of steam articles and books, their titles, dates, and source or papers in pdf format for you to just view and print or download and print.