a question about drawings in our archives

[NW Mailing List]

I have on occasion prowled about the on-line collection of drawings in our archives and it is amazingly extensive.  It is also interesting to me the amount of detail that went into these drawings and they seem to encompass even the most subtle nuances of changes over time.  I have also found a few drawings of interesting things for which I have never seen prototype photos, so this brings about my question.  Given the time and detail involved in creating these documents, how often would N&W engage in such exercises, if they never actually got translated to something that was used?  Could there really be that many drawings done that were only "what-if" speculations?  Like "what-if" we wanted to add a Viking roof to a specific class of boxcar, then it would look like this, and "what-if" we wanted to add a Climax roof to that same class of boxcar, then it would look like this, etc. etc.   Can it be reasonably assumed(absent obvious photographic proof) that if there is a set of drawings showing a particular appliance installed on a particular car type that it was actually at least done once in real life?  Or was it common practice for these drawings to be created based upon pure speculation or the various component offerings of the different manufacturers  (ends, roofs, doors, lock systems, etc.) ?


Brent

________________________________
Dr. J. Brent Greer
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20180803/02d17f1d/attachment.html>