Railroad Pictures Archive

December 26, 2012 7:22 AM

Come on into the MASSIVE Railroad Pictures Archive for, well, pictures of railroads. Over 3 million photos (!), over 100k locomotive pictures. Browse by railroad (defunct railroads are under Fallen Flags!), or browse by location, or look at rolling stock (over 700k pictures!). Looking for a way in? Check out the Editor Picks and Contributor Picks pages.
posted by OmieWise (8 comments total)

Another site in this vein is RailPictures.net, which is less expansive than Railroad Picture Archives (owing to its screening/approval process). Both sites are great if you're into trains.

Fallen Flag Railroad Photos is another good resource with information/photos about defunct ("fallen flag") railroads (along with some newer/still operating ones).
posted by Godbert at 9:56 AM on December 26, 2012

You can see the great contraction in the diversity of the railroad industry, and the withering away of a public image to matte boring shapes carrying cargo. Where once creative and colorful slogans once covered the sides of freight cars, now it is just technical details, warning labels, contact information. And now most rail cars have an RFID tag on their sides. Freight cars carrying really valuable and time sensitive cargo (produce, high end electronics) have a cellular modem.
posted by nickggully at 10:10 AM on December 26, 2012

After seeing a "The Belt Railway Co of Chicago" police car (whaaat?) a while back, I googled up this link to Railroad police cars.
posted by lstanley at 10:29 AM on December 26, 2012

That's awesome!
posted by OmieWise at 10:33 AM on December 26, 2012

This is where I link to a pic of the best derailment I ever got to go on.

I'll have a better look through the site when I get home tonight but if anyone could point me towards a site that has old pictures of MOW workers I'd appreciate it. All anyone else ever wants to look at are the stupid trains.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 1:07 PM on December 26, 2012 [4 favorites]

This is where I link to a pic of the best derailment I ever got to go on.

So surreal. Amazing photo.
posted by Skygazer at 1:21 PM on December 26, 2012

(whaaat?)

You never heard of railroad bulls? They're real police, with a mixture of state authority and federal interstate authority.

And of course the Belt Railway is one of the better-known surviving industrial short lines.
posted by dhartung at 2:20 PM on December 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

The Boston Public Library has a collection of 300+ photos of mostly Boston-area train, subway and trolley crashes by longtime Boston news photographer Leslie Jones.
posted by adamg at 7:28 PM on December 26, 2012