This document was created by scanning the original book of rules (BoR) and running it through an optical character recognition (OCR) program, OmniPage. The text was exported through Rich Text Format (RTF) into WordPerfect. The WordPerfect document was then formatted to look as close to the original as practical.
The HTML version of this document was originally created by WordPerfect Internet Publisher.
Optimization was carried out by editing the file by hand. [Modified 2001 to reflect current info.]
After OCR, the document was reviewed by me, and many errors were corrected. It was subsequently proofread by 4 volunteers, for whose help I am most grateful. This should bring the document to near 100% accuracy vis-à-vis the original. There are several 'philosophical' issues in the conversion to electronic format and proofreading of this Book of Rules with which not everyone will agree. I hope everyone agrees, though, that they are minor and not worth quibbling about too terribly much. I expound on these issues below, and I am happy to entertain opinions contrary to my own.
The text is intended to be 100% accurate in substance, if not totally in form (see below). That is, all printable characters in the entire document, with the exception of page numbers, are to be identical to the original. Anyone finding this not to be so is asked to inform the author.
The rather quaint (to the modern reader) grammatical style, punctuation, etc., were left intact. Subject and predicate were often separated by a comma, and one (?more) case of malagreement of verb with noun were left intact.
One of the proofreaders, Steven Haaser, noted:
The railroad apparently changed its accepted spelling [from] time-table to timetable in the 1964 revision. I've checked carefully to distinguish hyphenation at line endings properly from hyphenated spellings.
which I did not note at first. Also notable is the use of "live stock" in the Index versus "livestock" in the rule; conversely, "yardmasters" in the Index versus "yard masters" in the rule. I have elected to keep the varying forms.
Non-American/Canadian readers may find some of the wording perplexing. Some of this is attributable to the grammar; the remainder, however, represents a style of writing unique to railroad documents. Much of this would not pass a test of standard English (American version) grammar, let me assure you.
In several instances, the Table of Contents entries from the (original) printing of 1956 no longer matched the pasted-over, updated, 1964-or-so version that came to be passed down to me. In once case [Articulated Trucks], the subheading seems to have been eliminated entirely. In another [Use of Trainphone] it seems simply to have been forgotten in the printing of the paste-over sheet. These entries were retained so that the Table of Contents, which depends on cross-references and is not plain text, would operate correctly. As the first of these appeared to have been intentionally deleted from the rulebook, its entry is greyed in this document.
The signal diagrams contained within were created by hand by the author. The diagrams in the original were hand-drawn and not consistent from rule to rule, nor even from drawing to drawing within the same rule. My drawings are an attempt at a "best mean" of these images.
Some of the remaining images were left as bitmaps because of their sufficiently small size or difficulty in conversion to vector images (drawings). The images accompanying Rules 12(a-g) fall into this category. The other images (Rules 293 through 296, and those for Rule 38) were traced. CorelTRACE was first tried but did a terrible job. They were ultimately traced by hand.
This involves several conflicting issues, as follows:
Some font size changes in the original were clearly intentional, used to set off text. A case in point is all of the NOTEs, which are set a point size or so smaller than the immediately previous text. This was kept intact.
In other cases, a smaller font size was used in the original to fit an amount of modified text (e.g., on paste-in sheets) into a space that otherwise would not have fit that amount of text. I decided not to reproduce this use of smaller fonts, but instead, to use a consistent font size throughout (see also, below).
Steven Haaser again noted:
I am assuming that you wish to reproduce exactly the variation between normal and italic fonts. The original is inconsistent in many places, especially in the Train Orders examples...
This issue of retaining the mistakes of the original vs. correcting it to reflect their intent, intent as perceived by me, anyway, bothered me for quite a while. I decided, ultimately, to go with the latter. I based this decision partly on the fact that only the appearance, and not the content, of the text would be changed relative to the original.
The fonts commonly available via OSes and printer ROMs do not match the fonts used by the original printing shop in letter width, kerning, etc.. This creates situations, e.g., where a word is hyphenated across a page break in the original but appears in the middle of the last line on the page in this version. I considered this too 'ugly' to retain and opted to update the formatting.
Further, I considered trying to reproduce the original publisher's kerning, word spacing, and even line spacing (which varied from page to page to allow the text to 'fill' the page vertically) highly impractical. I did insist that headings remain with their following text.
Because of the several situations described above, which resulted in what I perceived to be a poorly formatted ('ugly') version, a conscious decision was made not to force the page numbers to correspond to the original.
The result is that this version appears as the rulebook would have appeared if the Pennsy had survived 1968 intact, (possibly merged with the N&W,) and the publisher were printing the next version of the rule book (had one ever been printed, which I believe none was). The Table of Contents and Index reflect these new page numbers.
Under the conditions outlined above, this document is correct and complete within human bounds of volunteer proofreading. Anyone finding what they believe to be an error in this document is is asked to please contact me with this information.
This document is Copyright 1995, 1996 by Mark D. Bej, all rights reserved.
The document is made available as "free software/text/images (files)" in a licensing agreement similar to the GNU General Public License, with some differences. The act of downloading any of these files, or purchasing or accepting this document in printed form, constitutes agreement to these terms.
This copyright and license is intended to protect the author's investment of blood, sweat, and tears (besides time and effort). My intent is not to make a buck off what is included herein, but only to prevent others from deriving monetary gain (profit) from my efforts. Specifically, the user is permitted:
1. To download the file(s) or obtain a copy of the printed document for personal use only.
2. To modify such a copy of the file(s) for personal use only, e.g., for personal use for one's own model railroad.
3. To distribute, free of charge, the unmodified file(s) in its (their) entirety. Such distribution must include the source code (for software) or full text (for text or wordprocessor files) and this licensing agreement, to which the recipient must agree prior to receipt. Each such copy must conspicuously and prominently show the original copyright and absence of warranty, and such copies will have no further restrictions placed upon them except those listed herein.
Users are prohibited from distributing:
1. Original or modified copies of these files for profit (though a reasonable charge for duplication and shipping is permitted);
2. Modified copies of the files, except where such modifications are minor ones made for the one receiving user and which are needed to allow the files to run (be executable; be readable) on that single user's system.
Users are encouraged:
1. To submit modified (improved) copies, or suggestions for improvement, to the original author.
2. To create links to my Web pages from their own pages.
3. To find and notify this author of any errors in any items I have posted, including this document.
4. To discuss these terms with me for any specialized situations that may not have been anticipated herein. I am a reasonable man.
This document is made available in the following versions:
1. HTML3 version, readable by standard World Wide Web browsers.
2. PCL5 (HP LaserJet 4) version, compressed with pkzip 2.04G.
3. PCL5 (HP LaserJet 4) version, compressed with unix compress.
4. Postscript, designed for output on 600 dpi printers (HP LaserJet 4).
Other versions may be made available upon request (e.g. LaserJet III versions). I will also make the original WordPerfect version available for specific purposes. Please contact me with your request.
Comments, corrections, or suggestions are always welcome. You may email me at
bejm@eeg.ccf.org
or send standard mail to
25321 Pleasant Trail
Richmond Heights, Ohio 44143
This rather long and involved project could not have achieved its present state without some help from friends, fellow rail nuts, and signalling afficionadi.
I am deeply grateful and indebted to three individuals, friends and fellow members of the Signal list (whom, typically in this electronic age, I've yet to meet), who helped to proofread this document for accuracy. I was most impressed and pleasantly surprised at the attention to detail paid this volunteer task by each of them, and with their willingness to give of their own time to help another's project along.
These proofreaders are listed according to the set of rules they proofread:
| Proofreader | Section proofread |
| Michael Stimac,
Pacifica, Calif. |
Revisions list
Table of Contents (text) Rules A to S-88 |
| Steven Haaser,
Baltimore, Md. |
Rules S-89 to before 280
Rules 305 to 371 (part) |
| Mike Bezilla,
State College, Pa. |
Rules 371 to 707
Rules 400C-1 to 4103-B (part) |
| Mark D. Bej,
Cleveland, O. |
Table of Contents (page numbers)
Rules 280 to 296 Rule 38 (figures) Forms 19 through C.T. 1250 4103-B (part) to 4165-E |
Again, anyone finding what they believe to be an error in this document is is asked to please contact me with this information.