Folks,

I think it's time for us to make up a list of railroad research archives available to railfans and historians.

I'm specifically NOT looking for major academic libraries that happen to have a railroad section (such as state university libraries that have a section devoted to business history or engineering) or public libraries with some railroad collection (such as the Otto Perry photo collection at the Denver Public Library); nor am I looking at railroad holdings at places like the National Archives or state archives (the Pennsylvania archives has been reported to warehouse huge PRR records, including supposedly one of every public timetable issued by the railroad).

What I AM looking for are railroad libraries maintained at railroad museums, station museums, NRHS chapters, and the like that are somewhat, reasonably open to the public, where someone could access a back issue of Trains or Railroad and photocopy the article, or come in and read a copy of that hard-to-locate railroad history book, or search for photos of a particular locomotive or branch line with a minimum of form fill-out, appointment-making, etc.

Such a list or inventory will be useful not only for folks looking to do research, but also for people who may be looking to leave or donate particularly interesting books or other resources to an appropriate archive. For example, I just snared a copy of a particularly scarce history of an Arizona railroad that I can see by looking online that even the public library in that area doesn't have. (There is apparently a copy in the local historical museum, which I know has a rich but well-"guarded" archive difficult to access.)

Examples I can start off the list with:

The Maryland Rail Heritage Library, a joint operation of the Baltimore Chapter NRHS and the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, on the second floor of the Visitors Center of the BSM. Open Wednesdays 10-4 and at least one Sunday a month 12-5; a catalog is posted online, rostering over 4,000 books with perhaps 3,000 titles: http://www.baltimorenrhs.org/library

The Martin F. O'Rourke Memorial Railroad Library at Bowie Tower, Bowie, Md. is a public reference library of railroad books, materials, manuals, maps, publications, timetables, and other railroad related materials and ephemera. The library is on the first floor of the tower and is open to the public Tuesday - Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and for groups of 10 or more by appointment.
http://www.railroadlibrary.org

The Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum has a modest library on its second floor, with a couple hundred books and periodicals.

The NMRA runs the A.C. Kalmbach Memorial Library in Chattanooga, Tenn.; this is supposedly the "Big Kahuna" of railfan libraries:
http://www.nmra.org/library/
(buried in that website is a surplus sales list, almost two years out of date.....)
A nice overview by a staffer is contained in this PDF newsletter:
http://www.thousandlakesregion.org/fusee/f521.pdf

The California State Railroad Museum Library provides public access to the Museum's documentary collections. The Library is located adjacent to the Museum of Railroad History on the second floor of the Big Four Building at 111 "I" Street. The reading room is open to the public without charge Tuesday through Saturday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
http://www.csrmf.org/library-and-collec ... he-library

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Anyone else want to "represent," as the youth of today say?

The Saint Louis Mercantile Library maintains an impressive Jown W. Barringer III National Railroad Library. The library contains extensive primary and secondary resources, and is open to the public. The Mercantile also has an impressive steamboat library and collections pretaining to Saint Louis history. The library was founded in 1846. Originally located downtown, the libary moved to the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. It is still very accessable, and the library is open, with staff during the week. On weekens, the area is monitored by a security guard, but you can still access the stacks. I made the mistake of trying to study for the bar exam in this library, luckily I still passed. http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/

The Museum of Transporation in St. Louis also has a good reference library. Hours are by appointment though.

2 very good ones in this area

http://nwhs.org/archives/about_archives.html

http://cohs.org/archives/

The NPRHA, in conjunction with GNRHS maintains an archive at the Jackson Street Roundnouse and the NPRHA is spearheading an effort to open a repository in the Seattle area. Major digitalization has occured with collections under the groups Joint Archive project.

http://www.gn-npjointarchive.org/default.aspx



Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

IRM has 2 separate off-campus libraries:

The Pullman library http://www.irm.org/pullmanlibrary/index.html , with drawings from Pullman, and predecesors.

The Strahorn library,http://www.irm.org/strahornlibrary/index.html 1 town west in Marengo, Il, with a more general RR collection.

Jeff

From the far west...

Bay Area Electric Railroad Museum at Rio Vista has a spectacular facility....

The Santa Clara Depot has a library... in what is possibly the oldest railroad depot west of the Mississippi River... 1864

Orange Empire Railroad Museum has a small library facility, rich in resources, and currently has a capital campaign for a new building...

The North Western Pacific Historical Society has a collection, once available in a university library, but now in storage.

Randy

The Colfax Railroad Museum has both a large 500+ book reference library and a 400+video library. Open mid April to the start of October.

The Archive at the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History is pretty great. Home to the Salters Photography collection. Also the Southern Railway Historical Association has their archive collection there. They are building a research library that will specialize in working with railroad/industrial historians. Will feature photo collections from Salter, Ben Roberts, the Glover Locomotive works. SRHA is working with the museum to make this a top notch research source.

Pacific Railroad Society (in Southern California) has a museum and library in the former Santa Fe depot in San Dimas (northwest of Pomona). It's open on Wednesday afternoons and during midday on Saturday. It may also be open on Mondays in the future.

Southern California Chapter, Railway and Locomotive Historical Society has a library in their former Santa Fe Horsecar at the Los Angeles County Fairground in Pomona. The library is open during the chapter's monthly open house days on the second weekend of the month, 10 am to 3 pm each day.

The Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society has Santa Fe records at two different locations. The eastern collection is housed in the former Temple, Texas, depot of the Railroad and Heritage Museum. The western collection is now housed in the former San Bernardino, CA depot building.

For more information see: Archives and Memorabilia