This bibliography about railroad work is a collaborative effort. Please feel free to suggest additional sources. We thank Jim Porterfield and John H. White Jr. for their knowledge and assistance in the project.
Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum. The People of the Pennsy. Altoona, Pa., March 1993.
Arnesen, Eric. Brotherhoods of Color: Black Railroad Workers and the Struggle for Equality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001.
Black, J. Marvin, and John Gruber. “In Service to a Nation, Men and Machines of the Southern Railway , 1947” (photos by Sol Libsohn). Trains 63, October 2003, pp. 52-61.
Black, Paul V. “Development of Management Personnel Policies on the Burlington, 1860-1900.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1972.
Bromley, Joseph. Clear the Tracks! The Story of an Old-Time Locomotive Engineer as Told to Page Cooper. New York, London: McGraw Hill, 1943.
Brown, Frank S. “Working on the Railroad.” Industrial Photography 34, October 1985, pp. 37-39.
Center for Railroad Photography & Art. It’s Work. Madison, Wis., the Center, 2006. Memorable images from exhibits produced with support from the North American Railway Foundation.
Chandler, Andrea. “People Power on the Railroad.” Modern Railroads, November 1989, pp. 16-19.
Cottrell, William F. The Railroader. Stanford University, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 1940.
Curley, Jerry. “Navajo Railroad Worker, My Father’s Quest for the American Dream.”Labor’s Heritage 8:4, Spring 1997, pp. 4-13.
Del French, Chauncey. Railroadman. New York: Macmillan, 1938.
Dietz, Paul C. Firing on the Pennsy: A Fireman on the Pennsylvania Railroad.Describes the “Last Hurrah” of the Steam Engine, 1943-1947. Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 2001.
Dillon, Hall. Rail Transportation Workers. Occupational Outlook Quarterly 33:1, Spring 1989, pp. 24-28 (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Ducker, James H. Men of the Steel Rails: Workers on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, 1869-1900. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1983.
Fant, David Jones. Ambassador on Rails: David J. Fant, Engineer Evangelist, by his son. Harrisburg, Pa.: Christian Publications, 1948.
Fink, Dan. “Lewis Hine and the Railroad Man.” Trains 33:1, November 1972, pp. 29-35 (also see editor’s note, “Railroadman,” p. 2a)
French, Chauncey Del. Railroadman. New York: Macmillan, 1948.
Gamst, Frederick C.
—The Hoghead, an Industrial Ethnology of Locomotive Engineer. Holt Rhinehart Winston, 1980.
–“Occupations,” in Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007.
George, Charles B. Forty Years on the Rail. Chicago: Donnelley, 1887.
Gould, William John Gilbert. My Life on Mountain Railroads. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1995.
Grant, H. Roger. Brownie the Boomer: the Life of Charles P. Brown, an American Railroader. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois Press, 1991.
Gruber, John
–“A Death in the Family,” the last days of the Green Bay & Western. Trains, May 1994, pp. 56+.
–“Family Ties: Railroading Gets in Your Blood.” Vintage Rails No. 12, May/June 1998, pp. 34-40.
–“Workers Remember the Hiawatha Days,” in Milwaukee Road’s Hiawathas. St. Paul: Voyageur Press, 2006.
Jensen, Oliver, Boomers, Hoggers, and Brass-Pounders, pp. 192-203. American Heritage History of Railroads in America. American Heritage Publishing Co., 1975.
Kalisher, Simpson. Railroad Men: A Book of Photographs and Collected Stories.Clarke and Way, 1961. [http://www.simpsonkalisher.com/railroad/railroad_01.html]
Katz, Daniel, and others. Productivity, Supervision, and Morale Among Railroad Workers. Ann Arbor, Mich: Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, 1951.
King, Ernest L., and Mahaffay, Robert E. Main Line: Fifty Years of Railroading with the Southern Pacific. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1948.
Lathrop, Gilbert A. Little Engines and Big Men. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1954.
Licht, Walter. Working for the Railroads, the Organization of Work in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Lightner, David L. Labor on the Illinois Central Railroad, 1852-1900: the Evolution of an Industrial Environment. New York: Arno Press, 1977, c1970.
Leuthner, Stuart, The Railroaders. New York: Random House, 1983.
Long, Terry L. “Occupational and Individual Identity Among Ohio Railroad Workers of the Steam Era.” Western Folklore 51, July/Oct. 1992, pp. 219-235.
Martin, Albro, Railroads Triumphant, especially ch. 12, “New Jobs, New People to Do Them.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
McCaleb, Walter F. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, with special reference to the life of Alexander F. Whitney. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1936.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Policyholderrs Service Bureau. Personnel Management on the Railroads. Simmons-Boardman Pubishing Company, 1925.
Murphy, Nicholas V. The Fun and Work of Railroading. Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1968.
Nash, Michael. “Women and the Pennsylvania Railroad: the World War II Years.”Labor History 30, Fall 1989, pp. 608-621.
Neal, Robert M. High Green and the Bark Peelers: the Story of Engineman Henry A. Beaulieu and his Boston & Maine Railroad. New York: Duel, Sloan, & Pearce, 1950.
Orr, John W., with an introduction by James D. Porterfield. Set Up Running: The Life of a Pennsylvania Railroad Engineman, 1904-1949. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
Peterson, Larry. “Pullman Strike Pictures, Molding Public Perceptions in the 1890s by New Visual Communication.” Labor’s Heritage 8:4, Spring 1997, pp. 14-33.
Pinkerton, William John. His Personal Record: Stories of Railroad Life. Kansas City, Missouri: Pinkerton Publishing Company, 1904.
Plowden, David, “Portraits of Railroaders.” Trains 61, Octobr 2001, pp. 40-49.
Quimby, D. Marion (Bing). One of the Last. New York: Vantage Press, 1995. (A vanity press autobiography of a locomotive engineer.)
Railroad Man, a film presented in the 1970s by the United Transportation Union, produced by Harold Mayer. Distributed by D&D Productions, P.O. Box 67, Randolph, Ohio 44265.
Reinhardt, Richard. Workin’ on the Railroad; Reminiscences from the Age of Steam.Palo Alto: American West Publishing Co., 1970.
Richardson, Reed C. The Locomotive Engineer, 1863-1963: a century of railway labor relations and work rules. Ann Arbor: Bureau of Industrial Relations, University of Michigan, 1963.
Riddell, Doug. From the Cab: Stories from an Engineer. Pasadena, California: Pentrex, 1999.
Solomon, Brian. Working on the Railroad. St. Paul, Minnesota: MBI Publishing and Voyageur Press, 2006.
Steeds, Will. Rails Across America, pp. 48-49. London, Salamander Books Ltd., 1993.
Steffes, Charles F. Life and Times of a Locomotive Engineer. Bakersfield, California: Old World Publishers (P.O. Box 81686, 93380), 1992.
Stromquist, H. Shelton
— “A Generation of Boomers Work, Community Structure, and the Patterns of Industrial Conflict on Late 19th Century American Railroads.” Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburg, 1981.
— “Enginemen and Shopmen: Technological Change and Organization of Labor in an Era of Railroad Expansion,” Labor History 24, no. 4, Fall 1983.
Swanson, Carl. Faces of Railroading: Portraits of America’s Greatest Industry.Waukesha, Wis.: Kalmbach Publishing Company, 2004.
Tabor, Thomas T., and Tabor, Thomas T. III. “The Men who Ran the Trains.” Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the 20th Century, History and Operation (1980), pp. 362-377
Taillon, Paul. “What We Want is Good, Sober Men: Masculinity, Respectability, and Temperance in the Railroad Brotherhoods, c. 1870-1910,” Journal of Social History36, no. 2, Winter 2002, pp. 319-3389.
Taylor, Joseph. A Fast Life on a Modern Highway: being a glance into the railroad world from a new point of view. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874.
Tye, Larry. Rising From the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class. New York: Henry Holt, 2004.
U.S. Eight Hour Commission, Report of … . pp. 305-306. Washington, D.C., 1918.
Ward, James. Southern Railroad Man: Conductor N. J. Bell’s Recollections of the Civil War Era. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.
White, John H., Jr.
–“Walking the Track.” Vintage Rails 11, March-April 1998.
–“Conductors.” Railroad History 187, Fall 2002.
— “Enginners, Part 1.” Railroad History 189, Fall 2003.
–“Engineers, Part 2.” Railroad History 190, Spring 2004.
— “Trainboys.” Nineteenth Century (Victorian Society in America) 23, no.2, Fall 2003.
Williams, George H. Life on a Locomotive, the Story of Buddy William, Chicago & North Western Engineer. Berkeley, Calif.: Howell-North, 1971.
“Workin’ on the Railroad: a Forgotten Profession.” Texas Monthly 20, August 1992, pp. 106-113.
Wyman, Mark. “Railroaders’ Town: Bloomington’s Shopmen Look Back.” Labor’s Heritge 1:1, January 1989, pp. 4-25.
Books with Sections about Work
Hungerford, Edward. The Modern Railroad. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1912 (2nd edition).
Henry, Robert Selph. This Fascinating Railroad Business. Indianapolis, New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1942.
The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management, and Appliances.New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1889.
Middleton, William D, George M. Smerk, and Roberta L. Diehl. Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007.
Taber, Thomas Townsend; Albert S. Eggerton; and Thomas Bullard. Railway Books and Theses Bibliograhy, 1812-2007, Electric Railway Books, and Railroad Periodicals Index Addenda. Muncy, Pa.: T. T. Taber, 2004.