User:Risk Engineer



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?
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, 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. 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 on your talk page and ask for the help you require immediately below it.
 * 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
 * WikiProject_Magazines/Writing_guide see also ..Google search on wiki writing guides
 * For help on editing pages ... General Discussion on wiki markup details .... see this tutorial ... For help on editing talk pages...
 * For disambiguation guidance .. see
 * 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 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 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 US agencies use .. * place this in the reference section ... see Federal law enforcement in the United States as an example ...
 * For articles citing material that is no longer copyrighted and now in the public domain, use ...
 * PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:

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 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..
 * See also Example permission requests
 * See also this website for some great info on public domain info
 * See also Wikimedia Commons for uploading materials...

For articles I have issues with... I can add this as a comment inside of double brackets .. "refimprove section|date=mydate" or ... for lack of neutrality or factual basis ... Template:Lopsided or this

For editing out old texts with embedded carriage returns ...

Helpful User pages
Top of current page
 * User:FiachraByrne
 * User:Gandydancer
 * User:Omnipaedista
 * List_of_wikis

Projects I am working on
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
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) 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. Top of current page
 * 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...

Public Agency Wiki articles
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
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
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

 * 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,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
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. 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”
 * Sourcebook project

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

Top of current page

Pages made better (or at least tried to)
• Mount_Olivet_Cemetery_(Hanover)

• New_Oxford,_Pennsylvania

• Adding role of Hanover, PA in the war of 1812

• Utica,Maryland a community in Frederick county, MD

• Coordinate material between these sites Ithiel_Town, Lattice_truss_bridge with that of North Carolina site on Town's work in that state. Pages I am planning to work on... Top of current page
 * Aaron Jay Kernis, musical composer.
 * Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion
 * Marie Elisabeth Lüders women's history ...

User Boxes
working on developing user boxes.. Userboxes/Transportation