Questions on Car and Locomotive Cyclopedia

I did not know they were still doing them.  The older ones were quite good, and an outfit called "Train Shed" did reprints.  I have a collection of those, and have built some fairly good steam models using their elevation drawings.

And yes, going prices for, say, the 1929 Cyclopedia are way north of $80.

The books offered should indicate in the title/description what years are covered. I believe that these are no longer printed; all that I have ever seen are from earlier eras. I do not know this to be the case, however.

I have a couple of the locomotive cyclopedias, but both from the WWII era, as that is my interest.

I do not think that those cars above would be in any "cyclopedia".

I would love to be proven wrong. 

I have a few myself and like others they are older.  As I recall 20's-40's for me.  Excellent sources as a starting point for any model project.  Again, like others, I'm not sure they are printed anymore.

As to price, books are knowledge and many don't make it to the internet.  Depending on how important a model is to me sets my willingness to pay the price.  However, I found most of mine at a used book sale of railroad books in the $10-$20 range.  I have purchased certain books well north of that price though because they are the bible for a certain era, railroad, or model type.

The last edition is dated 1997.  The edition before that is dated 1980.  Then something like 1974 and 1966.  The 1980 and 1997 editions are still available on the Boardman-Simmons website at $99 each.  It would also be worthwhile to check with your local library as I have accessed many editions this way.  Even if your local library doesn't have what you are looking for, they can often "borrow" from another library.  As an example, the New York Public Library lists both the 1966 and 1974 editions in their catalog.

To answer some of your other questions, yes there are a lot of technical line drawings for cars and locomotives, including some that were proposed but never produced (a GE end cab switcher comes to mind, a la the EMD sw1500).  I wouldn't say that there are a lot of photos of any particular piece of rolling stock, there is often a single photo or drawing or both.  Some illustrations are in color, but I think most are not.  Most of what is included leans toward mainstream, readily available products, rather than proposed or experimental equipment.

Whether the books are worth the money is a tough call.  They are kind of odd volumes, part giant advertising brochure and part reference.  It really helps to be able to preview an edition before buying, as it is really hard to know what is contained inside any given book until you turn page by page.  And it's important to note that each cyclopedia is essentially backward looking, with maybe a very short glimpse into the very near future of proposed products, so it's important to pick the right cyclopedia.  That being said, I have found content that I never expected, or that I've not really seen elsewhere.  

My advice would be to consider accessing the 1966 or 1974 editions via your local library, to get a feel for the type of content you can expect to find.  As to RMC (or Mainline Modeler or older Model Railroader), I think you should consider all available resources, as well as the cyclopedias, for content of interest.  The magazine index on the Model Railroader site does a good job of identify issues with prototype drawings in the search results.  If you can figure out which issues have merit, you can almost always find copies at train shows or via ebay.

Good luck!
Jim

I have the 1941, correct for my era, and it is full of steam prototypes l'd write checks for the models.