Railroad Archives

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Does anyone have a good list of which libraries and/or museums possess a significant amount of railroad historical material?

I’m thinking of records of railroads merged out of existence or perhaps that went bankrupt or insolvent and their records were donated. There are also records of railroad unions that similarly have fallen by the wayside. Perhaps there are other organizations such as rail car and locomotive manufacturers as well.

I recall that the Barriger Library has been mentioned as such a repository. I also know of a couple of university libraries that have some of this material. Just wondering if there is a good list for railroad research purposes.

LC

2

LC
check out the B&O museum, the NKP museum(bellvue oh) the nyc museum(elkhart in)
the N&W museum in roanoke va. these should be a good start,
good luck
stay safe
Joe

3

The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society is a very good place
to look. (Clifton Forge,Va.)

4

The Milwaukee Road/ SOO Line donated it’s entire archive to the Milwaukee public library.
Randy

5

For Openers:

Chicago Rock Island & Pacific: University of Iowa (Iowa City)& Oklahoma Main Library (Norman)Special collections

Erie Railroad: University of Akron (Ohio) Main Library special collection

ICC Files Pre-1975 @ University of Denver Law Library

National Archives II - Rockville, MD (University of Maryland Campus)

Denver Public Library/ Western History Collection (amazing photo collection that can be accessed from the web via CARL server)

with a little looking, you can find archival repositories on most of the fallen flags. You better have a good idea of what you are looking for on all of these before statrting a search.

Bradley & Creighton Universities have extensive collections.

DRGW: Colorado railroad museum

6

Thanks MC. Here’s a couple of others I have found.

Brotherhood of RR Trainmen (BRT) - Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations

Lehigh Valley RR - NJ State Archives

New York, New Haven & Hartford (NH) - University of Connecticut, Storrs

CB&Q, IC (partial), and the Pullman Company - Newberry Library (Chicago)

Norfolk & Western Rwy and Southern Railway (partial) - Virginia Tech

Delaware, Lackawanna & Western - Syracuse University

LC

7

The railroad museum in Temple, TX inherited a lot of Santa Fe MOW and operating materials when they took over the Santa Fe Depot. I haven’t spent a lot of time their, but I know they have many drawings and maps from the Central Texas area.

dd

8

The California State Railroad Museum has an extensive archive collection.

9

The Altoona public library has old PRR stuff from the PRR test lab. The PA state museum has a lot of the files and drawings from Conrail’s the equipment engr. dept in Phila. This would include NH, LV, CNJ, PRR, PC, EL and NYC plus some other stuff.