Lovell collaborated with a number of early rail enthusiasts, including three fellow PRR employees: Bruce B. Watson (d. 1958), an inspector in the Test Department; Allen O. Geertz (d. 1950), another inspector and fuel engineer; and William McKinley Keller (1901-1974), who rose to the position of Mechanical Engineer. He also corresponded with Paul T. Warner, an employee of the Baldwin Locomotive Works and the author of many historical articles for Baldwin.

Lovell’s all-time roster was written in pencil in engineer’s block lettering and bound in ten report binders as follows:

No. 1 Locomotives of Subsidiary Lines – The PRR – East of Pittsburgh. No. 2 Locomotives of Subsidiary Lines – The PRR – West of Pittsburgh. No. 3 Locomotive Register – Lines East of Pittsburgh. No. 4 Locomotive Register – PCC&St.L – Lines West of Pittsburgh. No. 5 List of Locomotives Built at Altoona Machine Shop. No. 6 PRR Locomotives – Nos. 1-1000. No. 7 PRR Locomotives – Nos. 1001-2600. No. 8 PRR Locomotives – Nos. 2601-4999. No. 9 PRR Locomotives – Nos. 5000-6999. No. 10 PRR Locomotives – Nos. 7000-9000.

Lovell turned over the binders to Al Geertz sometime shortly after their preparation in 1946, presumably with the understanding that Geertz and his other friends would keep them up to date. After Geertz’s death in 1950, the binders passed into the hands of William McKinley Keller, who in turn presented them to the PRR’s General Office Library in 1953. Their subsequent history is obscure. With the closure of the PRR Library in the 1960s, they were apparently donated to the Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Library of the Bureau of Railway Economics in Washington, D.C., then one of the finest assemblages of historical railroad publications in the country.

In 1966, the binders were borrowed by Smithsonian Curator and locomotive expert John H. White, Jr., who had them microfilmed and returned the originals to the AAR. Another locomotive historian, William D. Edson, used the originals to prepare his Keystone Steam and Electric (1974), and apparently used a print of the Smithsonian copy to produce his unpublished PRR roster, of which he sold photocopies to individuals by special purchase. In 1984, the National Railway Historical Society published Pennsylvania Railroad Altoona Shop Construction Number List, 1866-1904, which is apparently an edited and annotated version of binder No. 5.

Beginning in the 1970s and particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, the AAR Library was dismantled by a series of deaccessioning waves, with some materials being returned to the companies or organizations that originally donated them and some being given to other libraries. The residue of the collection eventually found a home at the John W. Barriger Library in St. Louis, but the original Lovell binders have disappeared.

However, Binders No. 1, 2, and 5 existed in duplicate, with the second copies being held by the Research Group in the Mechanical Engineer’s office. At least Binders No. 1 and 2 passed into the possession of William McKinley Keller, and he in turn gave them to Robert B. Watson, the son of Bruce B. Watson and also a PRR mechanical engineer. Watson donated them to the Hagley Museum and Library in 2006.

Bruce B. Watson had also inherited the bulk of Al Geertz’s notes and photograph collection in 1950. Most of this material was kept in a large wooden box in the PRR Test Department offices at Altoona, but was regrettably destroyed when the department was shut down at the start of the 1968 Penn Central merger. However, seven small ledgers were kept separate and survived. These were apparently Lovell’s rough drafts for the finished binders. These ledgers, along with two typed copies that appear to represent the beginnings of an attempt to put the rosters in final form, were inherited by Bob Watson and included in the gift.