Faces of Railroading and the Making of Madison and Dane County looks at the historic role railroaders have played in this mid-western town, as they did in so many other communities. Special attention is given to railroader neighborhoods and their geographic proximity to the railroad yards. The exhibition takes a focused look on the individual workers, the unsung heroes of the rail lines, and highlights the importance of the industry in the growth of the city of Madison, Dane country, and the surrounding service area.

NARF and The Evjue Foundation, Madison, provided major support. Its first venue, June 8-28, 2006, was at the state capitol in Madison. The exhibit opened with a program June 8 and a reception courtesy of Trains magazine, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Kitchen Hearth Catering, Madison. Display followed at Mid-Continent Railway Historical Society, North Freedom, Wisconsin, through October 30, 2006, and at the Mineral Point (Wisconsin) Railroad Society’s historic depot in 2007. The show was brought out of retirement ten years later to be displayed at the 2017 Annual Wisconsin Department of Transportation Freight Conference in Madison, Wisconsin before traveling to several local public libraries in the Madison area.

The exhibitions features photographs by Henry Koshollek, photographer for The Capital Times; John Gruber, Richard Gruber, Robert Eineke, and Paul Swanson, plus images from the Wisconsin Historical Society. John S. Fuller made the earliest known photograph of the railroad in Madison in the 1860s showing the causeway across Lake Monona, the yards, and a stone roundhouse.