Bianculli, Anthony J. 1925-

PERSONAL: Born November 2, 1925, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Joseph D. (a firefighter) and Theresa V. (a homemaker) Bianculli; married Frances Delisle, October, 1952; children: Joseph, James, Jean Bianculli Gentz, John, Maria Bianculli Di Bianco. Ethnicity: "Italo-American." Education: Polytechnic University, B.M.E., 1949. Politics: "Republican." Religion: "Roman Catholic." Hobbies and other interests: "Railroad history."

ADDRESSES: Home—3 Toth Lane, Rocky Hill, NJ 08553. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: RCA Corp., engineer in Harrison, NJ, engineering manager in Princeton, NJ, and Somerville, NJ, 1952-86; All-Tech, Inc., Rocky Hill, NJ, president, 1986-95. Served as mayor of Rocky Hill and as chair of Rocky Hill Board of Adjustment; Mary Jacobs Memorial Library, trustee. Military service: U.S. Army Air Forces, aviation trainee, 1944-45.

MEMBER: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (life fellow), Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, National Railway Historical Society, Society for Industrial Archaeology, Society for the History of Technology.

WRITINGS:

Trains and Technology, University of Delaware Press (Newark, DE), Volume 1: Locomotives, 2001, Volume 2, 2002, Volumes 3-4, 2003.

Railroad History on American Postage Stamps, Astragal Press (Mendham, NJ), 2004.

Contributor to engineering journals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Book on nineteenth-century railroad inventions.

SIDELIGHTS: Anthony J. Bianculli told CA: "I have had a lifelong interest in railroading and, as a result of a serendipitous meeting with an old high-school classmate who was the director of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, I obtained access to a century of stored records and information on nineteenth-and early twentieth-century railroads. Exploring this and other sources over a twenty-five-year period, I determined that misinformation abounded about pioneer railroads and that many early railroad features were not well explained in popular literature. My findings led to the writing of my four-volume book, Trains and Technology. Upon my retirement from industry I devoted myself full-time to its completion.

"Another work, Railroad History on American Postage Stamps, melds another interest, philately, with railroads. In the course of researching this topic, I discovered that, although many individuals are interested in stamps with railroad subjects and there is, in fact, an organization that serves these specialists, there were no books that provide a thorough listing of all the American stamps that relate to the subject. More importantly, the railroad history represented by these various stamps had never been organized into a comprehensive account. My book attempts to correct those omissions."