User:Risk Engineer

en

This user is a native speaker of the English language.

This user is a participant in
WikiProject United States Public Policy.

This user is a participant in
WikiProject
United States Government.

This user is a member of
the Guild of Copy Editors.

This user is interested in the U.S. State of Maryland.

This user is a former resident of California.

This user is left-handed.

This user is male.

Éireannach
This user is Irish.

This user is of German ancestry.

This user is interested in history.

This user is addicted to travel.

10

This user has visited 10 of the 208 countries in the world.

This user is a railfan.

This user enjoys photography.

PE

This user is a licensed
Professional Engineer.

This user is a participant in WikiProject Ghost towns.

This user eats popcorn.

This user believes that caffeine is necessary in large doses daily.

"Surely this user can't be serious?"

This user is cooler than you.

This user knows that 42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

...

This user may get around to being a professional procrastinator. Someday. Maybe.

—

This space is for rent.

Welcome ... I'm a professional engineer/amateur historian living in Maryland. I have a pretty wide variety of interests -- many of which involve travel in one form or another -- but here on Wikipedia I mostly devote my energy to articles about the history and geography of the railroads and engineering. I also enjoy cooking!

Like other users such as User:Antandrus, I enjoy working on significant but little-known topics ... subjects not likely to receive much attention on Wikipedia otherwise.

My background is four decades of engineering and project/program management experience in both the public and private sectors as well as operating my own engineering business and affiliated teaching experiences in engineering, project management and project accounting.

What is Wikipedia?[edit]

I am astonished at this thing called Wiki... and recommend you read this wiki page or the missing manual to grasp some of the breath of this as a body of knowledge. As its literature notes, they are here to build an encyclopedia. See also the material on making technical articles understandable.

The policy of the wiki and its objectives, Wikipedia:Principles and its Neutral Point of View objective, or NPOV as well as discussion on public domain issues; Wikipedia:Non-free content,Permission examples as well as general PD template and US Government PD templates.

Good articles on Engineering discussion ...
Public records as well as state public records ... the key point in this is the connection between public records and public domain materials that can be used in Wikipedia... Freedom of information legislation
Guidance on developing new pages is located on this page... for more advanced page organization guidelines see this wiki article.
Manual of Style/Layout and the overlying Manual of Style.
- Standard appendices and footers
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_Magazines/Writing_guide see also ..Google search on wiki writing guides

In some cases these new articles involve reporting on specific very technical reports issued by US Governmental and occasionally State/Local agencies ... no existing guidelines are available to use in developing these type of articles/pages... so I have embarked upon developing some templates.. using this help page for templates... if one gets "stuck" then deploy {{Helpme}} on your talk page and ask for the help you require immediately below it.

For help on editing pages ... General Discussion on wiki markup details .... see this tutorial ... For help on editing talk pages...

For disambiguation guidance .. see [1]

For help on TOCs..

For Hat-notes... Help on user pages...

For abandoning a draft, just put '{{db-user}}'at the start of it.

For guidance on "Identifying and using primary and secondary sources" .. as well as Wikipedia:No_original_research and articles summaries ...for Templates on infoboxes and more templates and Categories ..help on images

For Wiki markup specifics, help on links ... For naming conventions

As I have learned in the past few years working on wiki, there is a lot of duplication. This is true in the case of template material and guidance for citations and sources. This Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles is a very good overview and set of examples. For more help on citations also citing sources ... and templates for citing journals ... as well as for templates and documentation ...see also .. [http://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Template:Main#.22For_more_details_on_.E2.80.A6.2C_see_.E2.80.A6.22 "main article" "see also" templates] ... for clarifying material see Disambiguation ... for articles requiring paid subscriptions such Ancestry.com

For articles citing material that is no longer copyrighted and now in the public domain, use ...

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help)

for US agencies use .. * {{USGovernment}} place this in the reference section ... see Federal law enforcement in the United States as an example ...

Additional citation direction ....if you have permission from the copyright holder to release the content freely under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) then you should do one of the following:

If you have permission from the author leave a message explaining the details on the article Talk page and send an email with the message to "permissions-en@wikimedia.org". See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission for instructions. See also Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials

If a note on the original website states that re-use is permitted under the GFDL or released into the public domain leave a note at the Talk page for the article with a link to where we can find that note (or a copy of the permission);

If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on the article Talk page. Alternatively, you may create a note on your web page releasing the work under the GFDL and then leave a note at Talk article with a link to the details. see also this template.. {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}}

Helpful User pages[edit]

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Projects I am working on[edit]

As part of my efforts.. I have created various subpages as draft documents while put all the material together rather than tie up an actual wiki page... It is not possible to make a redirect to a special page, or to create normal pages beginning with the "Special:" prefix. You can see them if you scroll all the way down to the bottom and click on user subpages...

I also am working on drafts using the wiki sandbox(es) ... click on them above to see more ... enjoy!...

This is a listing of all my recent contributions.

Public Sources of Information[edit]

I could not have done this without archival efforts by others....

first and foremost is Wiki-library itself... again amazing!...

World CAT library search site ... Library of Congress services and catalog on ASCE engineering periodicals

Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, Lantern Slide Collection at U Michigan...

National Archives Access

David Pfeiffer materials on railroads at the Archives...

National Park Services online materials for railroads

Google books and related sites, including Hathi Internet Trust for Railroad journal materials... incredible source ....

Archives of Maryland online, policies ... Debates of the 1850 state constitutional convention and the benefit to the State from its investments in Railroads ... Maryland State Archives for Newspapers ... The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army. 1861-1865 by W. W. Goldsborough (1900) from the state archives.. UMD archives on the WPA in Maryland during the 1930s.

Maryland HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDING SURVEY (HABS) COLLECTION ca. 1930-1940 (bulk 1936) record group PP85 includes Little Pipe bridge, Prints and Photographs Division, Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument St.Baltimore, MD 21201.

Frederick County Court Records Up thru March 1869 and the following book of records which ends on October 1870 and the following book begins and ends on October 1872 ... the next book starts and ends in May 1873 and the next book begins . The 1896 court record begins in Book 38 ,pages 1 to 752.

Frederick County Land Records and Land Plats home page

Frederick County GIS home and maps

Frederick County preservation assistance program.

History of Frederick County by John Thomas Scharf

Thomas John Chew Williams and Folger McKinsey, History of Frederick County, Maryland, , Genealogical Publishing Com, 1979, ISBN 0-8063-7973-1.

Western Maryland Regional Library,101 Tandy Drive,Hagerstown, Maryland 21740

Frederick County surveyor records ...(Survey Record, Index)1784-1915 CM510 Film Reels:CR 11670-1 (Scanned) Description:See CR 38,446 for ret. of HMSA Citation:MSA CM510-1

Frederick Historical Society website ... ancestry website and info for Maryland... Baltimore collection of Frederick County history.

Wiki category of people from Frederick County.

Wiki category of Frederick County geography

Wiki category of Frederick County geographical landforms

Thurmont history image website ...loads of RR materials ...

Emmittsburg Historical Society website.

Carrol County Historical Society

Adams County Pennsylvania History ...railroads

Maryland Topo maps site.. Maryland state maps... Sanborn maps at LOC..

Maryland State Names and Places (1904 Gazetteer, Accessed May 2013) ^[1] and the Maryland register of historical places ... A 1867 geographical description of Frederick County with a reference to the newly incorporated Frederick and Pennsylvania Line railroad. Extending Walkersville MD city limits-1941 ... Town incorporated in 1892.

I am researching the property acquisitions for the Frederick and Pennsylvania Line RR in the period of 1869 thru 1871.

Pennsylvania State Archives: PRR and successors archives...
Library of Congress and its historical survey resources as well as its "built in America" project.
Appleton's American Biography a source but should be read with caution...
Pittsburgh University digital photo collections and the PRR...

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Public Agency Wiki articles[edit]

As a retired DOT professional.. I am interested in upgrading my former department's various wiki pages to add more info... They are missing program data, history,etc. and could be enhanced to match that of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA as an example ... More on this when I get into various components on the subject of risk.. Particularly, issues to do with engineering and project management in a regulatory context, i.e. United States administrative law and naming conventions for public agencies ... I also plan to add material on the agency projects ...

Wikipedian in Residence[edit]

I am interested in supporting Federal programs that engage in the design and construction of mega-projects and infrastructure as a Wikipedian in Residence]These programs serve the interests of the American people.. sometimes we meet their expectations and sometimes we don't but nonetheless I seek to preserve the history of these programs and their lessons learned. I encourage these programs to seek out Wikipedians to develop the material on these programs and make them accessible to the public. Please feel free to leave a note on my talk page if there is an interest...

Conflict of Interest Disclosure[edit]

As a retired public agency employee and "unpaid" Wikipedia editor, I have a conflict of interest in writing about some agency programs. I also possess significant knowledge and experience with agency operations and I wish to edit responsibly. Therefore, I will follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously. I will disclosing my interest on their user pages and on the talk page of the article in question, and to request the views of other editors and if necessary I will make suggestions on the relevant talk page.

See also this material on COI disclosure- User:Econterms/COI

NARA COI material and templates... NARA Wikipedia project

Public Agencies[edit]

Technical report and the use of grey literature... as well as the broader category of documents such as engineering reports, assessments ... Copyright status of work by the U.S. government and the subcategory of Category:Reports of the United States government . Congressional Research Service reports and its public domain content template as well as the Category:United States government attribution templates government, Maryland templates,Wikipedia:Public_domain_status_of_official_government_works,Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government, FOIA

Missing economic census data as well as statistics of income from IRS...

WikiProject United States Government[edit]

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) , Office_of_the_Federal_Register, Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations

Administrative Conference of the United States and their external site... Incorporation by Reference in an Open Government Age.

Sourcebook project

Office of Management and Budget , Category:United States Office of Management and Budget, Baseline (budgeting), Issuance of OMB’s “Final Bulletin for Agency Good Guidance Practices”

Clinger–Cohen Act The Clinger-Cohen Act (CCA) of 1996 requires agencies to use a disciplined Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process to acquire, use, maintain and dispose of information technology (IT). It also encourages the use of performance- and results-based management of these initiatives. Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Government procurement in the United States ... this last one needs a lot of work .... Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Government Accountability Office

List of U.S. Department of Defense agencies

United States Department of Energy , org charts ,DOE Program and Staff Offices

United States Forest Service as well as the amazing..List of legislation governing the United States Forest Service good templates for use... defining new ones for engineering and construction ...

Bureau of Land Management , United States Bureau of Reclamation,

United States Department of Health and Human Services

United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA ..Policy & Guidance ... plus a history of risk assessment at EPA! ... and more guidance

Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty

For Attribution -- Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards

Federal Transit Administration (FTA)[edit]

See COI statement above... NARA materials available... See also this discussion on copyrighting by Federal contractors such as FTA PMOs. This the wikisource materials on FTA. Wiki Commons [ site id] as well.

See also the problematic and tagged article on Program management

High reliability organization think of transit as an HRO...
FTA issued regulations
GAO audits of FTA
FTA Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Apportionments
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users
- Federal grants in the United States referencing financial assistance
United States National Research Council , Engineering_and_Physical_Sciences , Board on Infrastructure and Constructed Environment , * DOE PM studies
Transportation Research Board and its subsidiary programs... National Cooperative Highway Research Program and its counterpart... the TCRP...which has no wiki site on it yet...

NJT's Access to the Region's Core, or ARC

MTACC's Eastside Access or ESA

MTACC's Second Ave Subway.. or SAS

LACMTA's MEGLEE project

PAAC's North Shore Connector project...

Silver Spring Center ...Montgomery County website ... Office of Legislative Oversight

Federal Highway Administration, Federal Railway Administration, Interstate Commerce Commission.

Valuation Orders: these are a valuable source for railroad researchers .. this is a site that provides additional information on their structure. See also Pennsylvania Archives on PRR see also the Wikiproject for this ICC effort.

In 1951, the AAR produced an index^[2] of ICC valuation reports that identified their docket number, volume and page numbers. :Several of the railroads I am studying are listed in these reports...

York, Hanover and Frederick railroad has two references:

Docket #887,Volume # 22, page 1;

Docket #887,Volume # 23, page 1225;

For all Maryland state railroads..

Emmitsburg Railroad Company

Docket #582,ICC Volume # 116, page 447;

Last but not least is the United States Railroad Administration, one of the few instances of nationalization of such a scale in US history ...

State of Maryland: State Government Manual
Michigan Highway network ..compare that to Maryland's... I know ..I know it's highways not transit ...

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Pages made better (or at least tried to)[edit]

Coordinate material between these sites Ithiel_Town#Town.27s_Lattice_Bridge, Lattice_truss_bridge#Wood_lattice_truss_bridges with that of North Carolina site on Town's work in that state.

Pages I am planning to work on...

Aaron Jay Kernis, musical composer.
Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion
Marie Elisabeth Lüders women's history ...

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User Boxes[edit]

working on developing user boxes.. Wikipedia:Userboxes/Transportation

Notelist[edit]

^[a]

References[edit]

Poor, Henry V (1860). "Gettysburg Railroad". History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States (Google Books). New York: John H. Schultz and Co. Retrieved 2011-05-10.

Footnotes[edit]

^ Gannett, Henry (1904). A Gazetteer of Maryland And Delaware , Volume 2 (Google eBook). Washington: UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.
^ Rice, Herbert William (1951). Index of the (ICC) Valuation reports. Washington, DC: Association of American Railroads. Retrieved 11 May 2013.

What is Wikipedia?[edit]

Helpful User pages[edit]

Projects I am working on[edit]

Public Sources of Information[edit]

Public Agency Wiki articles[edit]

Wikipedian in Residence[edit]

Conflict of Interest Disclosure[edit]

Public Agencies[edit]

WikiProject United States Government[edit]

Federal Transit Administration (FTA)[edit]

Pages made better (or at least tried to)[edit]

User Boxes[edit]

Notelist[edit]

References[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

See also[edit]