Railroadiana Items In Your Collection

I have a few signs and a Baldwin bell and cradle, NJCJOE's collection is unbelievable. Fred

World War I medallion given to my great-grandfather for his service. 

Railroadiana stuff; let's see.  Lanterns, switch keys, rule books, timetables, maps, tariffs, uniform insignia, insulators, the usual.  I have a lot of PRR stuff that came from a friend of my father's who was a PRR conductor.  He had hired out around 1940 and didn't appear to have ever thrown anything away.

My wife's great, great grandfather was a tower operator on the Big Four in Hamilton, OH in the teens and I have his old lantern along with 3 globes, one clear with no logo and a red and a clear, both with the Big Four initials.

When I do dig stuff out and look at it, I tend to spend more time on the maps and tariffs than anything else.  I was fortunate to have been working for a large rail shipper at the time of rail deregulation in 1980 and was able to retrieve quite a few boxes of what had become useless tariffs; all stuff that was being thrown out.  The mileage tariffs are the most fascinating to look through and normally include a system map for the issuing railroad on the back cover.  Some of the ones I rescued from the trash back in the early '80's carried mail department stamps from the 1920's.

Curt

One of the things I collect are old (1870s-1930s) stereoview cards. I focus on railroad, Christmas, children, and bathing beach subjects. I have some nice train views from the early 1900s, and NYC Elevated views from the turn of the last century. The 3-D images make these photos more realistic, although they are not in color.

I also collect "linen" era postcards (1930-1950). For some reason, the buses interest me more than the trains (maybe because Streamlined Train cards are very common).

Here we have a few EMD operating manuals.

First is Manual No. 2314 for the SD7:

Next is No. 2319 dated August, 1954 for the SD9:

The title page of the SD7 manual is not dated; however, it is a first edition and the composite wiring diagram is labeled October, 1952.

Bob

Those are in very nice condition, and generally sell for $15 to $25 each at the railroad memorabilia shows. 

I picked up EMD's E-7 operating manual about 20 years ago for $7.

Only piece I have is a rail spike that came from the FEC ROW that I found after the MOW crew came through replacing some wooden ties under one of the sidings that used to go to a concrete plant.

ICG timetables, rulebooks

I've never really collected Railroadiana items.  My dad's best friend and our next door neighbor while growing up worked for Southern Pacific for 42 years.  His name is Elmer Wright.  At one time he was the Yard Master for the SP Bayshore Yard in San Francisco.  He is now in his 80's.  He just recently gave me the following personal SP items:

Brass Switch Keys

Lantern

Railroad Watch Certification Card

SP Rules and Regs Manual

Safe Work Practices Manual

SP Gear Bag - Given out as a safety award

Switch Man ID Card

Yard Master ID Card

They're all on display in my layout room.

Matt

Since the E7 manual was mentioned above, here's one in my collection:

Note the inclusion of the PRR keystone on the cover. During the early years of dieselization, some manuals were published in railroad specific editions. My example was issued upon delivery to the Pennsy of the 5900 and 5901, the first two E7s purchased by the railroad. In fact, the title page references these two unit numbers specifically and the illustration of the 5900 and 5901 pictured above is printed on Page 2.

This is Manual No. 2300 with a revision date of January 1, 1946.

Bob        

I have Pa Railroad Co.(PRR) 50 share stock certificate issued to the J C Wheat & Co. in 1963 with a par value of $10 each share.   It has a great drawing/engraving of the Horseshoe Curve in the top center.  Maybe it's still worth $500?

Lots of stuff here including a control stand from an SD24 and various locomotive maintenance and operating manuals. Eleven volumes of Marshall Kirkman's "Science of Railways" books circa 1900. EMD 645 cylinder head cut in half with valves and fuel injector. Broken EMD engine parts. GE FDL engine camshaft section. A couple cast builders' plates from Australian railway carriages. Some Trains magazines back to 1948. Misc timetables and rulebooks. A few date nails from ties. A spike puller. And a few track ties and rails and spikes and tieplates and brake shoes and brake hoses and busted knuckles and cast ROW signs ...

My uncle in Michigan worked for Conrail (he now works under Norfolk Southern), so I have quite a bit of Conrail stuff, including:

-An employee hat

-Safety glasses

-Binder of operations manuals

-Coffee Mug

-Two lanterns: one regular and one "blue signal"

-I guess my O gauge GP38 could be considered part of this category, as he received it as an award from Conrail's safety program (and then I got it for Christmas). This was my first ever piece of O gauge equipment.

I also have plenty of other stuff, including several Amtrak timetables, brochures from train shows, calendars, newspaper clippings, the newspaper insert for Austin's "Capital MetroRail" service (still haven't been on it yet), Union Pacific map, Southern Pacific Timetable, handbook on oil-fired steam locomotives, some track parts, etc.

And... I have a genuine 1937 copy of Portraits of the Iron Horse. I don't know if it counts, but it's illustrated by the man responsible for the streamlined Hiawatha and Royal Blue locomotives: Otto Kuhler. No modern-day book can immerse you in the age of big steam and early streamliners like this one.

Aaron

I only have a few things, but what I do have mainly consists of Lehigh Valley Railroad stuff, from the part of the line between Slatington and Lehigh Gap. My Grandpa walks along the trail that they made out of this line, and he has brought me many spikes (including one with numbers on top). He also brought my two nails which he pulled out of ties. I know nothing about them. The one on the left has the letters "P", the center indent, then a "k". The other one has the number 20 on it. Any ideas?

I also have a Lehigh Valley Railroad bond from 1950. The funny thing is even though my Grandpa lives right across the street from the old Lehigh Valley mainline, and I live about 3 miles from it, I found this while on vacation in Maryland!

These I just bought last Friday, along with some Lionel ads and a bunch of car ads. If anyone has more information on these, I would appreciate that as well.

By the way, I buy, sell and trade railroadiana. If anyone is looking for a particular item let me know, I may be able to help.

Thank you for the information!