Dear All -

With the knowledge and language skills this forum's members have, we can do a real service for model railroad collectors and operators by contributing to Wikipedia articles on our favourite items - doubtless many of you already do. I've recently been beavering away on some old SBB electric locomotives due to some recent acquisitions and new Marklin product announcements.

German Wikipedia is a great resource for this type of info but citation practices differ culturally, and when articles get translated over to English they are often flagged for lacking sufficiently detailed citations. (For example, see the Ce 6/8 I article). My work has mostly been remedying this: tracking down authoritative sources of bits of information and referencing them.

In particular, for the older SBB electrics, this book is the Bible - (but sadly not free from the Gideons) so I bought a copy:

Schneeberger, Hans (1995). Die elektrischen und Dieseltriebfahrzeuge der SBB, Band I: Baujahre 1904–1955 (in German). Luzern: Minirex AG. ISBN 3-907014-07-3.

However, some more specialised books I don't have - but you might. They are:

* Jeanmaire, Claude (1970). Die elektrischen und Diesel-Triebfahrzeuge schweizerischer Eisenbahnen, Die Lokomotiven der Schweizerischen Bundesbahnen (SBB) (in German). ISBN 3-85649-036-1.

* Estler, Thomas; Sigrist, Heinz (2014). Die SBB-Loks Typ Sécheron, Be 4/7, Ae 3/5, Ae 3/6 III. Bäretswil: Edition Lan. ISBN 978-3-906691-70-1.

If you are Wikipedia adepts, please mine them for their information and improve the citations. Alternatively, contact me by PM if you have a copy - then in future I know who to ask to send me images of any relevant pages. That would work a treat along with Google Translate.

Osoraku

PS - Next up: that Ce 6/8 I article. The SBB Crocodiles are also poorly reported on in EN Wikipedia.