{"id":1369,"date":"2022-06-04T11:10:19","date_gmt":"2022-06-04T16:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/?page_id=1369"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T16:14:10","slug":"railroad-history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rlhs.org\/WP\/railroad-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Railroad History"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Benefit of Membership in the R&LHS<\/span><\/p>\n

Railroad History, known as the R&LHS Bulletin from 1921 until 1972, is the oldest railroad history journal in North America. It contains original scholarship and fresh interpretations that set the standard in railway research. Here are carefully selected articles, photographs, and art. It is issued twice yearly in an 8\u00bc by 10\u00bd-inch perfect-bound paperback edition and is included in R&LHS membership. Its Book Division has the most complete reviews anywhere of the latest books about railroads and traction. The journal is indexed by America: History and Life, a database available at major research libraries, and on this site.<\/a> JSTOR (an acronym for Journal Storage) has a searchable digital archive of the R&LHS Bulletin (1921-1972) and Railroad History (1972-up to a rolling date five years before the current date.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/span><\/td>\nRailroad History 233 Fall-Winter 2025. \u00a0(Current Issue)<\/span><\/p>\n
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  • The diesel teamwork that did it: How Pennsylvania Railroad official James M. Symes overcame the road\u2019s hidebound allegiance to steam locomotives. He partnered with Wall Street analysts to force PRR\u2019s upper management to face cold, hard financial facts and commit to dieselizing the 11,000-mile-long carrier\u2019s motive-power fleet outside its eastern electrified territory. By Professor Al Churella, author of the landmark three-volume history of the PRR published by Indiana University Press (Vols. 2 and 3) and University of Pennsylvania Press (Vol. 1).<\/li>\n
  • Elizabeth Tone Summers: The story of a young woman who turned her love of steam locomotives into a career as an artist, including becoming an art director for R&LHS\u2019s Railroad History. By Emily Mizokami, an archivist at the California State Railroad Museum who discovered many examples of artwork signed by \u201cE. Tone\u201d while cataloging R&LHS\u2019s collection of artifacts.<\/li>\n
  • Last in, first out: How the Lehigh Valley Railroad\u2019s decision to delay building its own tracks to Buffalo, N.Y., held consequences decades later when the LV was swallowed up by Conrail. By David F. Drury, an officer of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum.<\/li>\n
  • The U.S. Railway Administration: An unrecognized wartime success story. Countering negative assessments of USRA that have gone unchallenged over the last century, author Christopher Gebel, a retired military instructor, argues that the agency actually accomplished what it was supposed to do.<\/li>\n
  • Short Takes: \u201cThe 30-day miracle of 1975,\u201d by Ron Goldfeder, R&LHS
    \nmembership chairman, tells the firsthand story of working on the restoration of former Reading Co. Class T-1 4-8-4 engine No. 2101 to operating condition with lightning speed to make it ready for the two-year national tour of the American Freedom Train.<\/li>\n
  • Short Takes: In \u201cMusic and the Iron Horse,\u201d Martin K. O\u2019Toole describes how 19th-century European composers not only wrote music to celebrate railways, but also performed their works in purpose-built concert halls in railway stations.<\/li>\n
  • R&LHS Railroad History Awards. Citations were given for excellence in lifetime achievement (Fred W. Frailey), books (Geoffrey Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon), articles (Tom W. Parkin), photography (Karl Zimmermann), and videos (Boston &amp; Maine Railroad Historical Society, with Rick Kfoury, James P. Nigzus, Myles Gadon, and Connor Maher).<\/li>\n
  • Obituaries for former R&LHS President J. Parker Lamb; longtime Pacific Coast Chapter Chairman Dr. Robert J. Church; steam-locomotive owner and promoter <\/span>Ross E. Rowland, Jr.; journalist and columnist Don Phillips; and Hagley Museum <\/span>and Library archivist Christopher T. Baer.<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Plus reviews of 20 recent top railroad books, curated by Book Division Editor Rich Roberts.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

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\"\"<\/span><\/td>\nRailroad History 232 Spring-Summer 2025.<\/p>\n
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  • Restoring a classic American boxcar: An iconic blue-white-red State of Maine Products car, the legacy of a joint government-industry promotional and advertising campaign. By Howard Pincus, president of the Naugatuck Railroad and chairman of its nonprofit partner, the Railroad Museum of New England.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Florida\u2019s \u2018Big Three\u2019 Railroads: How Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, and Florida East Coast rose and fell during the state\u2019s land boom of the 1920s. By retired professor and widely published Florida railroad author Gregg M. Turner.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Arthur Rothstein and the Virginia & Truckee in 1940: A brief photo essay on a celebrated Nevada short line, an excerpt from a forthcoming Indiana University Press book by Tony Reevy titled <\/span>The FSA\/OWI Photographers and the American Railroad<\/span><\/i>, due in spring 2026.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Pre-Modernist Depot Architecture:<\/span> The innovative Southwestern railway stations of Kansas City\u2019s eccentric architect, Louis S. Curtiss. By retired professor Keith L. Bryant, Jr., winner of R&LHS\u2019s 2019 Gerald M. Best Senior Achievement Award.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Caltrain Electrifies the San Francisco Peninsula:<\/span> Closing a 161-year chapter of<\/span> locomotive-powered trains and fulfilling a long-discarded 1921 Southern Pacific proposal for electrification. By Elrond Lawrence, with vintage photos from the archives of his employer, the Center for Railroad Photography & Art.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • A Splendid Failure:<\/span> A look at the experimental British 4-2-2-0 steam locomotive <\/span>James Toleman<\/span><\/i>, which, after a series of trouble-plagued Chicago-Milwaukee tests in 1894, was unceremoniously retired to a museum. By Ron Goldfeder, R&LHS membership chairman.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • A Civil War Debate:<\/span> What was the most destructive date in American railroad history? By Pete Claussen, founder and chairman of Gulf & Ohio Railways and Knoxville (Tenn.)\u00a0 Locomotive Works.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Railroading 101:<\/span> In 1939, Southern Pacific engaged the public with an informative little booklet containing a mix of locomotives, signals, and railroad jargon. By <\/span>Railroad History<\/span><\/i> Editor Dan Cupper.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Plus reviews of 23 recent top railroad books, curated by Book Division Editor Rich Roberts.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

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\"\"<\/span><\/td>\nRailroad History 231 Fall\/Winter 2024<\/p>\n
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  • \u00a0Executive compensation on the Pennsylvania Railroad during the Great
    \nDepression, by Professor Albert Churella, drawn from research for
    \nVolume 2 of his three-volume history of the PRR.<\/li>\n
  • Toot-Sweet: The role of the Louisville &amp; Nashville Railroad\u2019s 728th
    \nRailway Operating Battalion in World War II: Rebuilding the bombed and
    \nsabotaged French railway network, then moving troops and mat\u00e9riel
    \nfrom Normandy to Paris and beyond in the aftermath of D-Day. By David
    \nWilkins.<\/li>\n
  • Further developments and follow-up to our worldwide examination of
    \nscientific locomotive test plants in Railroad History No. 228. New
    \nresearch on a previously little-known Chinese installation is offered by
    \ndoctoral candidate in history and R&amp;LHS board member Ben Kletzer,
    \nwho has worked in China and extensively photographed steam-
    \nlocomotive operations there.<\/li>\n
  • Coming to America: How a teenage Italian stowaway made a fresh start
    \nfor himself in the New World, beginning in 1914 as an engine wiper on
    \nthe Philadelphia &amp; Reading Railway around Philadelphia and Camden,
    \nN.J. By the subject\u2019s son, Thomas L. De Fazio.<\/li>\n
  • A photo retrospective on the 50 th anniversary of the 1974 abandonment
    \nof Milwaukee Road\u2019s 656-mile electrification on its Pacific Extension.
    \nIncludes two pages of photos by noted railroad photographer Ted
    \nBenson.<\/li>\n
  • Update covering track extension on the East Broad Top Railroad, a
    \nonce-threatened narrow gauge line that is a National Historic Landmark
    \nnow under restoration.<\/li>\n
  • Plus:\n
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    • Reviews of 21 recent top railroad books, curated by Book Division Editor Rich Roberts.<\/li>\n
    • Railroad History Awards given to James L. Ehernberger, Professor S. Charles Bolton, Greyson Teague, and publisher Rudy Garbely.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n
\"\"<\/span><\/td>\nRailroad History 230 Spring\/Summer 2024<\/p>\n