Collect or Interested in Railroad Antiques?

Great article. I enjoyed the blog too. Educational and entertaining ,a good combination. I signed up for the newsletter and I look forward to receiving interesting articles. I do have the time these days!

Chad:

First, as a longtime OGR “Forumite”, thank you to the Railroadiana Collectors Association for your sponsorship!

I read and enjoyed the linked article  in Antique Trader.  I suspect quite a few of us model train folks also have an interest in the real thing and have picked up railroadiana items for display in our train rooms over the years. Although I wouldn’t consider myself an official railroadiana collector, I do have various items in my collection such as switch keys, conductor’s pins, time tables, tariffs, rule books, insulators and, an item I’m particularly fond of - a Big Four lantern with both clear and red globes - both embossed with the CCC&StL. This belonged to my wife’s great grandfather who was a tower operator on the Big Four in the Dayton, OH area in the 1910-1920 time frame.

Again; thank you for your sponsorship and looking forward to seeing more on the forum from y’all.

Curt

While I don't necessarily consider myself a Railroadiana collector, I have an a box full of train schedules going back into the 40's, three crossing signal flashers, some various signal lenses, and a huge collection of glass insulators mostly collected from my teens when the poles were coming down. 

My dad has a nice collection of lanterns he picked up in the late 60's when they were not expensive. 

I've collected since the mid 70's, with a decade or so break in there someplace. I collect good lanterns, have about 100 presentation & conductor lanterns, 25 Locomotive whistles, 7 bells, a headlight, 400 or so switch keys, wax sealers, ticket daters, dies, signs, clocks, books, spare globes, step stools, tons of paperweights & uniform small stuff, HO and 2-rail O scale brass engines.

Chad, welcome to the OGR forum and thank you for your sponsorship.  My dad worked for the SP when I was very little, he was a signal maintainer and road around on a speeder.  I worked for the SP as a switchman, I've got my lantern plus a few more, I have a caboose marker light and my switch keys which included a caboose key.  Never have figured out why they gave us a caboose key, they were always open, never found one that was locked.  I also have a couple of other lanterns, but I can't think of what they went to.  Looking forward to your posts and would love to see some links to some articles on collecting.  Welcome aboard.

JEM - this might be a case of coals to Newcastle but, if you are interested, you might want to check out these two books:

and

Bill was a signal maintainer on the SP and Kay was his wife.  To the best of my knowledge this is the only husband/wife team where both members told their stories of railroad life.  I really enjoyed both books not only from the standpoint of well told tales but also from the standpoint that, at one point, I lived in that section of California these two called home.

My wife's Pop worked for Southern Pacific and "collected" a lot of things. These are just two of them. After he passed Vicky's Mom moved but left a Daylight bell screwed on the fence. Wonder who has that now. Don

Love the replies. Thanks everyone for the support. And stay tuned, going to have some good previews coming up for forum readers!