This illustration of the locomotive Novelty ran over the nameplate on the first issue of the American Rail-road Journal in 1832. It shows British design and engineering influence on U.S. railroading. The locomotive's owners entered it in a competition sponsored by the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, but did not win the prize.
Railroad Preservation in a Nutshell
U.S. railroads began in 1795 with a small gravity line in Boston, Massachusetts, used on Beacon Hill to remove dirt from the excavation for the commonwealth's capitol building or statehouse. Ever since, railroads have captivated the public's imagination, enough so that preservation soon got underway. To explain railroad preservation, we have selected technical and historical landmarks that illustrate the connections among preservation, popular culture, and railroads. We invite your suggestions. As images become available, we will post them on railroadheritage.org and provide a link for each to the accompanying texts.
"Preservation in a Nutshell" honors John H. White, Jr., a professor of history at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, who in 1990 retired from the Smithsonian Institution as its curator of transportation. His thirteen books on early locomotives and passenger and freight cars provide a taxonomy of type and their development, one of the signal achievements in the written history of America's industries. His many articles include, most recently, "Elisha Talbott and the Railway Age" in Chicago History (Winter 2010). White has written articles for Railroad Heritage and helped the Center in many ways. Thank you, Jack!
1828: First Stone of the First Common Carrier, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
On July 4, a heavily symbolic date in the U.S. and railroad history, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Baltimore. The stone was moved in 1992 to the B&O Railroad Museum, a mile east, and a historical marker was erected at the original site.
1832: Railroad Journalism's Beginnings
Railroad journalism began with American Rail-road Journal. In 1849, Henry Varnum Poor (1812-1905) became its manager and editor. In 1860 he published the History of Railroads and Canals in the United States to provide information about the financial and operational state of U.S. railroad companies. He later established H. V. and H. W. Poor Co. with his son, Henry William. The financial rating company Standard & Poor's traces its origins to this publication.
1856: First Windup Toy Train
George W. Brown, a clockmaker in Forestville, Connecticut, made the first windup toy train. Another firm, Ives, Blakeslee, & Williams, soon built a great variety of toy trains which have remained a childhood staple ever since and have inspired many youngsters to become rail enthusiasts. Actual trains are among the giant machines that fascinate preschoolers and kindergarteners.
1868: Advent of Railroad Timetables
Rand McNally began printing tickets and timetables for the railroad industry, and in 1869 supplemented that business by publishing complete railroad guides to aid travelers and businesses. Early examples of these ephemeral publications have made their way into museums, public libraries, and private collections around the country.
1869: Mount Washington Cog Railway
Mount Washington cog railway, the world's first mountain climbing cog (rack-and-pinion) railway, opened in New Hampshire. The railway still exists and in 2007 installed solar-powered track switches. In 2008, it operated its first biodiesel locomotive, relinquishing part of its steam operation.
1869: Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad
The Golden Spike ceremony at Promontory, Utah, on May 10 celebrated the completion of the transcontinental railroad, witnessed by the multi-racial crews that had built it. The Galveston News (June 4, 1869) said: "The artist of the Union Pacific Railroad photographed this scene--a locomotive flanked by Chinese on one side and a locomotive flanked by Caucasians on the other, taking in some of the accessories--the meeting of America, China, and Europe in the midst of the vast and fruitful desert which is hereafter to be filled with busy multitudes and with all the evidence of human progress and power." Photographers, working for the two railroads, recorded the construction and completion. Their views were the first large-scale documentation of a railroad project. For U.S. economic history, the completion launched national marketing and distributing systems. The National Park Service created Golden Spike National Historic Site in 1965 at Promontory as the completion's centennial approached. The Central Pacific Photographic History Museum, an Internet site, tells the transcontinental railroad story.
1872: Railroads' Ties to National Parks
Railroads and conservationists teamed up to encourage the U.S. government to set aside lands for national parks. Yellowstone was first in 1872, promoted by the Northern Pacific. The Southern Pacific and John Muir cooperated to promote Yosemite as a park, established in 1890.
1876: Railroads, World's Fairs, and Public Relations
The railroad industry, still growing, exploited its past for public relations purposes at the 1876 International Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. Ever since, world's fairs continued to feature railroad equipment and exhibits, especially: Chicago, World's Columbian Exposition, 1893; St. Louis, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904; San Francisco, Panama Pacific International Exposition, 1915; Chicago, Century of Progress, 1933-34; New York, Building the World of Tomorrow, 1939; Seattle, Century 21, 1962; and New York, Peace Through Understanding, 1964. The displays at the 1893 Columbian Exposition included photographs by William Rau for the Pennsylvania Railroad and William Henry Jackson for the Baltimore & Ohio--providing an example of the importance of images in historical explication and for preservation. In 1893, the locomotive John Bull, built in 1831, came to Chicago under its own power from Jersey City courtesy of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Marshall Field planned to use the B&O collection at the fair as the nucleus for a railroad museum, but the focus soon turned to natural history and resulted in the famed Field Museum. In 1934, the Burlington Zephyr's dawn-to-dusk run from Denver to Chicago, ending on the stage at Chicago, was a sensation for its speed and streamlined design.
1880: Why Our Train? Because its Historic!
Joseph G. Pangborn (1844-1914), the P. T. Barnum of railroading, became advertising agent for the Baltimore & Ohio, promoting "history" as a reason to travel on its longer, slower route than the routes of other lines. He assembled for the B&O the largest display at the World's Columbian Exhibition in 1893, moving much of it to St. Louis for the 1904 fair. Pangborn told a good story but was not always historically accurate, creating factual snarls for future generations, explained John H. White Jr., retired Smithsonian curator. Today, the core of Pangborn's world's fair collection is at the B&O Museum in Baltimore.
1883: Labor Movement Beginnings
As part of the burgeoning labor movement in the U.S. and among railroaders, eight brakemen founded the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, largest of the modern United Transportation Union's predecessors, at Oneonta, New York. They met in caboose No. 10, now on display at a park in Oneonta. The movement helped secure shorter work weeks and safer working conditions.
1884: First Locomotive at Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., began including technology when it accepted from the Pennsylvania Railroad the locomotive John Bull. The railroad also paid, for the first year, the wages of the Institution's first curator of engineering, J. Elfreth Watkins (1852-1903). The John Bull first operated in 1833 on the Camden & Amboy, a PRR predecessor. The donation started the preservation of a series of "first" locomotives (listed here with construction date): Pioneer, between 1835 and 1845, Galena & Chicago Union, Chicago History Museum; Milwaukee & Mississippi No. 73, 1857, later El Paso & Southwestern No.1, Union Plaza Transit Terminal, El Paso; Central Pacific Railroad No. 1, Gov. Stanford, 1862, California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento; Southern Pacific No. 1, C. P. Huntington, 1863, CSRM; St. Paul & Pacific No. 1, William Crooks, 1861, Lake Superior Transportation Museum, Duluth; and Northern Pacific No. 1, Minnetonka, 1870, LSTM.
1890: Proliferation of Special Purpose Passenger Cars
Special purpose cars came into use in the late nineteenth century and continued in use into the 1940s. Notable among them were chapel cars, built and outfitted for the Episcopal, Baptist and Roman Catholic churches in America, the first being built for the Episcopalians in 1890 and called the Cathedral Car of North Dakota, Church of the Advent. The Northwest Railway Museum at Snoqualmie, Washington, owns and is restoring Messenger of Peace, built for the American Baptist Publication Society in 1898; another ABPS car is Grace, built in 1915 and in service until 1946, now on the grounds of the American Baptist Assembly, Green Lake, Wisconsin. Other special purpose cars included fish cars that took fingerlings from fish hatcheries to lakes, educational cars of all sorts, photo cars, and more.
1891: University Courses in Railroad Engineering
By this year, institutions of higher education had begun embracing railroad engineering. For example, the University of Wisconsin hired a railway engineering professor in 1891, though it had had a steam engineering professor earlier. He was Nelson O. Whitney (1858-1901), formerly an assistant engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Chicago. Also in 1891, Purdue University built a locomotive test plant and began preserving locomotives and an interurban car to aid in its teaching (these become part of the collection of the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis in 1951). The University of Illinois built a locomotive test plant in 1913.
1892: Santa Fe Fosters Railroad Art
The Santa Fe Railway commissioned Thomas Moran (1837-1926) to paint scenes at the Grand Canyon to promote travel, establishing the railway as a leader in corporate art collecting. Later, in 1899, William Henry Jackson traveled in a photo car on the Santa Fe, recording its route on film. In this era, railroads promoted tourism, a role now assumed by state and community organizations.
1894: I've Been Working on the Railroad and Railroad Songs
Although folk musicians had composed railroad songs earlier, none has been as popular as I've Been Working on the Railroad, which appeared as the Levee Song in 1894. Railroad tragedies added to the song list: engineer Casey Jones's death at Vaughn, Mississippi, 1900, a real-life tragedy, resulted in the so-called "comedy song," Casey Jones: the Brave Engineer. Another song, the Wreck of the Old 97, is based on a 1903 accident near Danville, Virginia.
1900: Electric Toy Trains and Children’s Books
Joshua Lionel Cohen (1877-1965) founded Lionel Manufacturing Co. in New York City. Cowen’s first train, the Electric Express, was made as an eye-catching display for toy stores, not as a toy itself. American Flyer and Louis Marx & Company trains soon followed. Train stories for children also were popular, notably The Little Engine That Could of 1930 with illustrations by Lois Lenski. The text is attributed to “Watty Piper,” a pseudonym created by the publishing house Platt & Munk for its edition of the book originally entitled The Pony Engine and written by Mabel C. Bragg.
1903: Railroads in the Movies
Railroads were introduced to silent film audiences with The Great Train Robbery. When sound was added, along came such films as North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, and Murder on the Orient Express--all household names in the last two-thirds of the twentieth century. The prevalence of railroad scenes in movies, especially railroads in metropolises, has quickened knowledge of railroads around the country, a boon to preservation efforts.
1904: Special "Farm Trains" and Educational Tours
Iowa State College and two railroads sponsored "Seed Corn Gospel Trains," the first to carry agricultural extension to farmers across any state. The railroads benefited from farmers' growing of more and improved crops that had to be shipped by rail. Although extension fieldwork started earlier, these were the first true educational trains. Their popularity spread across the country, reaching such locations as Erath, Louisiana, on the Southern Pacific. By 1911, 71 trains operated in 21 states, attracting more than 995,000 visitors. Railroads also benefited by selling federal and state land-grant acreage formerly believed impossible to farm. The "Cow, Sow, and Hen" trains, as they were called in Kansas, proved that poor acreage often could be farmed. Some railroads also created demonstration farms as sales aids.
1907: Railroad Picture Postcards
U.S. Post Office eased regulations for postcards, a boon for picture postcard publishers whose cards frequently featured railroad stations and trains. William Henry Jackson at the Detroit Publishing Co. added to the proliferation with his classic railroad scenes. The true postcard craze lasted until World War I, but picture postcards continue to be popular, both as a form of communication and as a collectible field.
1921: Union Pacific's Museum and Archive
The Union Pacific Railroad established its Omaha museum and archive, now one of the oldest corporate collections in the nation. The museum moved to the former Carnegie Library in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and formally reopened there on May 10, 2003, the 134th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
1921: Railroad Enthusiast Organizations
The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society organized, followed by the National Railway Historical Society and the National Model Railroad Association, both in 1935. The Railroadians of America, formed in 1939, merged into the New Jersey Midland Railroad Historical Society in 1996. The San Diego (California) Model Railroad Museum has become the only railroad-themed museum in the U.S. that the American Association of Museums has accredited.
1927: Fair of the Iron Horse
Baltimore & Ohio staged its Fair of the Iron Horse near Baltimore, commemorating the centennial of its charter. The B&O invited the railroad industry as a whole to join in the lavish outdoor festival.
1935: First Federal Preservation Act
The U.S. government made preservation an official national goal with passage of the National Historic Sites Act of 1935. The act established the National Historic Landmarks program. The first railroad nominations were in Pennsylvania: East Broad Top Railroad, 1964, and Horseshoe Curve, 1966.
1939: Preservation of Electric Railways
Preservation of electric railways began with the founding of the Seashore Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, Maine, with one open trolley car, No. 31 from the Biddeford & Saco Railroad Company. The Connecticut Trolley Museum followed in 1940. Others now include Branford Electric Railway Association, East Haven, Connecticut, 1945; Illinois Railway Museum, Union; Orange Empire, Paris, California; Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Washington, Pennsylvania; Western Railway Museum, Rio Vista Junction, California, 1946; National Capital Trolley Museum, Colesville, Maryland, 1959; Minnesota Transportation (later Streetcar) Museum, Minneapolis, 1971; and New York Transit Museum, New York City, 1976.
1940: Rail Enthusiast Magazines
A(lbert) C(arpenter) Kalmbach (1910-81) published the first issue of Trains magazine. Earlier magazines for enthusiasts date from Railroad Man's Stories of 1906, which evolved into today's Railfan & Railroad. Railroad preservationists had their own magazine, Locomotive & Railway Preservation, from 1986 to 1997.
1948-1949: Chicago Railroad Fair
The Chicago Railroad Fair, initially conceived to mark the centennial of railroading in Chicago, became a two-year national celebration in recognition of Chicago's position as the railroad center of the U.S.
1960: End of Mainline Steam and Escalation of Preservation
As mainline steam ended as part of regular service on the nation's railroads, efforts intensified to preserve artifacts and equipment from steam-era railroading. Hundreds of locomotives and cabooses went on display in parks and at local museums across the country. As of 2010, some 1,900 steam locomotives alone existed across North America.
Steam-era shops became prime spaces for museums. In 1977, Southern donated land at Spencer, North Carolina, formerly a steam locomotive repair shop, for the North Carolina Transportation Museum. The Central Pacific's 1869 shops in Sacramento, at one time the largest industrial complex west of the Mississippi River, now are leased to the California State Railroad Museum.
Some steam equipment still operates. Union Pacific kept its last steam locomotive, no. 844, on its roster. Canadian Pacific returned locomotive 2816 to service in 2001 as a part of the railroad's Community Connect program. Some nonprofits run steam programs. For example, there are Southern Pacific Daylight locomotive 4449, which came out of a park in Portland, Oregon, initially to pull the 1976 bicentennial train; Milwaukee Road 261, now in Minneapolis and operated from 1993 to 2008; and Nickel Plate 765, at the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Historical Society, returned to service in 2009.
Private and public museums and tourist trains, too, sprang up: Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, North Freedom, Wisconsin, 1959; Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1959; Northwest Railway Museum, Snoqualmie, Washington, 1971; Museum of the American Railroad, Dallas, Texas; and many others. The Strasburg Rail Road, a shortline incorporated in 1832, turned into a tourist line in 1958.
Among the most significant historic operating museums, all listed as National Landmarks or on the National Register, are the East Broad Top, Rock Hill Furnace, Pennsylvania, whose owners sold it for scrap in 1956 and whose buyer saved it and started tourist operations in 1960; Cumbres & Toltec Scenic, Chama, New Mexico; and Nevada Northern, Ely, Nevada. The train with the most riders is the White Pass & Yukon, Skagway, Alaska. Some museums came much later, such as the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington at Altna, Maine, organized in 1989. It is rebuilding a portion of a 2-foot gauge railroad on its original right of way.
While some railroad photographers abandoned railroad photography when steam ended, others continued their creative work. Classic Trains published a fifty-year commemorative issue in 2010. And David Plowden, the country's best-known railroad photographer, has prepared a retrospective, Requiem for Steam: The Railroad Photographs of David Plowden, for a fall 2010 release.
1960s: Unused Stations and Civic Reuses
As railroads closed stations and other buildings around the country, they often made them available for civic uses. In many communities all across the U.S. these buildings have been turned into museums, libraries, businesses, and more. They help Americans remember the role that railroads played in building the nation.
1961: Railroad Museum Organizations
The Association of Railway Museums organized; TRAIN or the Tourist Railroad Association followed in 1972.
1961: Canadian Railway Historical Association's Exporail
The Canadian Railroad Historical Association created Exprorail, a museum at Saint-Constant, Québec. The National Museums of Canada recognized it in 1978 as the nation's specialized museum dedicated to Canadian railway history. Exporail owns the largest collection of railway equipment in Canada. In 1958, British Columbia enthusiasts formed the West Coast Railway Association, which has the country's second largest railroad holdings.
1961: Southern Railway Steam Locomotive at Smithsonian
The Southern Railway's steam locomotive 1401, built in 1926, was moved (part of the way on Constitution Avenue) to a new building at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. In 2003, the Smithsonian installed a new transportation exhibit, America on the Move, and made 1401 a centerpiece. It was a fast passenger locomotive, painted green and gold, and had served passengers traveling to and from the U.S. capital. Notably, it pulled President Franklin Roosevelt's funeral train in 1945 from Warm Springs, Georgia, to Washington, D.C.
1963: Razing of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, a Preservation Catalist
The destruction of Pennsylvania Station in New York City catalyzed the nation's preservation movement in general and led, ultimately, to the restoration of Grand Central Terminal, whose completion was celebrated in 1998. Specifically, it led New York City to create a landmarks commission in 1965, which in turn saved Grand Central Terminal by winning the case, Penn Central Transportation Co. vs. New York City.
1966: National Historic Preservation Act
President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act, which incorporated the earlier National Historic Landmarks program and created the National Register of Historic Places as a function of the U.S. Department of the Interior. As of 2008, nearly every element of railroad infrastructure, individually or collectively, was listed on the Register: 1,500 stations or depots, 525 properties in historic districts, 12 roundhouses, 4 enginehouses, 12 hotels, and 395 engineering features such as bridges and tunnels. In addition, 19 railroad corridors were on the Register, as were some 60 locomotives. In the last few decades, federal transportation (ISTEA, TEA-21, and SAFETEA LU) not only allowed the funds to be used for railroad and preservation projects, but required that a certain percentage of project funds be used for enhancements such as preservation activities.
1970: States and Preservation
As mandated by the 1966 act, states established preservation offices. Colorado and New Mexico bought the Chama-to-Antonito section of the Denver & Rio Grande Western's narrow gauge line, today operated as the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic. D&RGW sold its Durango-to-Silverton Branch in 1981 and today it is operated by American Heritage Railways. Earlier, in 1961, West Virginia set up the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. The Texas State Railroad was conveyed to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in 1972.
1971: Mechanical Engineering Landmarks Program
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers established its mechanical engineering landmarks program. 0f nearly 250 landmarks designated since the program began in 1971, thirty-one are rail related.
1981: California Railfair
The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento celebrated the opening of its Museum of Railroad History with Railfair 1981. Railfair '91 commemorated the tenth anniversary. Railfair '99, the 150th anniversary of the golden state, was "The Last Great Rail Event of the Millennium." CSRM has become the most visited railroad museum in the U.S. Other major museums are the B&O in Baltimore, established in 1953, and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg, 1975.
1985: Steamtown at Scranton
Steamtown, a private collection, was moved from Vermont to Scranton, Pennsylvania. The U.S Congress established Steamtown National Historic Site on October 30, 1986. It opened to the public in 1995.
1995: Recognizing Railroad Workers
Workers' contributions to the construction, growth, and quality of all aspects of railroading received wider recognition. This was especially true for African Americans. In 1995, Lyn Hughes, current director, established the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in Chicago, named for the founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Randolph (1889-1979) organized Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963 and was a lifelong civil rights advocate. The Center for Railroad Photography & Art with support from the North American Railway Foundation introduced its "Representations of Railroad Work" exhibitions in 2004, celebrating all workers of all genders and ethnicities.
1999: "All-Aboard" Series of Postage Stamps
The U.S. Postal Service issued an "all-aboard" series of stamps showing five streamlined locomotives as painted by Ted Rose in watercolor. The first U.S. postage stamp depicting a train dates from 1869.
2004: O. Winston Link Museum
The O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia, opened in his honor. Link (1914-2001) was a photographer whose iconic images captured the last days of steam operation from 1955 to 1960 on the Norfolk & Western Railway. They became a part of the history of not only railroad photography but of America's photographic history in general.
2007: Norfolk Southern's Best Friend of Charleston Replica
The Norfolk Southern reconnected with its heritage by displaying a replica of the Best Friend of Charleston locomotive as a part of an exhibit at its David R. Goode office building in Atlanta. Southern, a predecessor company of NS, built the replica at its Birmingham Shops in 1928. The original Best Friend initiated scheduled railroad passenger service in the United States on Christmas Day 1830 and was destroyed six months later by a boiler explosion.
2008: Chinese Steam Locomotives and Record Freight Train in Iowa
Iowa Interstate Railroad's double-headed freight train from Iowa City to Rock Island set a "record for steam-hauled revenue tonnage in the 21st century," carrying 6,252 tons in 65 cars. The locomotives, built in China, remain in service in the U.S. for special events.
2009: Train Festival at Owosso, Michigan
The Leviathan, a replica of the Jupiter, the Central Pacific's locomotive at the golden spike ceremony in 1869, made its first public appearance at Train Festival 2009 at Owosso, Michigan. The event featured eight operating steam locomotives. More than 36,000 people turned out for the four-day festival to see the locomotives and exhibits.
2010: “21st Century Steam,” Locomotive Excursion Program
Norfolk Southern Corporation is negotiating with the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum at Chattanooga for operation of a limited schedule of steam locomotive appearances and passenger excursions to be called 21st Century Steam. “This is the right time for steam to ride the Norfolk Southern rails,” said CEO Wick Moorman. “We have a fascinating history, and we have a compelling message about how today’s railroads support jobs, competition, and the economy. It is a forward-looking message that resonates with people everywhere.”