July 25, 1864 | Photograph
1850 | Photograph
Few original images remain of railroad workers in the 1850s, especially of construction crews, whether free labor or enslaved. Northern railroad companies employed thousands of men on their payrolls in a dizzying array of occupations.
1861 | Photograph
1861 | Photograph
A Matthew Brady image of the roundhouse at Alexandria, Virginia during the Civil War.
1862 | Photograph
Numerous railroad hubs in the Confederacy became sites of repeated fighting, both large- and small-scale. Here, the ruins were the work of the Confederate Army as it abandoned its forward position in northern Virginia to protect Richmond.
2010 | Photograph
The ruins of the Blue Ridge Tunnel, as it appears today. The Blue Ridge Railroad and Blue Ridge Tunnel were built by the state?s Board of Public Works. When the railroad company?s chief engineer, Claudius Crozet, requested slave labor, the board had to decide whether the state should purchase slaves for the project. The tunnel has long since been abandoned, but the brick and stonework is the original, much of it slave-built.
1862 | Photograph
McClellan used the Richmond & York River Railroad to position his massive Army of the Potomac just a few miles from Richmond.
1861 | Photograph
A Matthew Brady image of the slave pen of Price, Birch & Co., Alexandria, Virginia.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) depicts a large number of railroad mechanics posing with a locomotive.
1911 | Photograph
This image from Edward Hungerford's The Modern Railroad (1911) features the "John Bull," a historic locomotive of the Camden and Amboy railroad.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), showcases "the biggest locomotive in the world," a huge engine built by the Santa Fe Railroad in its Topeka, Kansas shops.
1877 | Photograph
Part of a series of stereographs published in the wake of the 1877 Railroad Strike. The images show the destruction at Pittsburgh, which resulted from violent clashes July 21-22.
1877 | Photograph
Part of a series of stereographs published in the wake of the 1877 Railroad Strike. The images show the destruction at Pittsburgh, which resulted from violent clashes July 21-22.
1928 | Photograph
This photograph shows the hotel and railroad station at Cumberland, Maryland, built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, as it looked in 1928.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), shows a railroad conductor at work.
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911), captures a track walker, lantern in hand, performing his nightly duties.
1864 | Photograph
October 10, 1922 | Photograph
This is a photograph taken at the unveiling of the Samuel B. Reed monument in Joliet, Illinois on October 10, 1922. The monument is still located on the grounds of the Joliet, Illinois Will County Court House, approximately 75 feet from the northeast corner of the building. It reads: "On this spot in 1850 Samuel Benedict Reed, Civil Engineer, pioneer railroad builder, citizen of Joliet, began the survey for the present Chicago Rock Island and Pacific, the first railroad to reach and bridge the Mississippi River. The first train into Joliet reached this initial point October 10, 1852. As Chief Engineer of Construction he directed the building of the Union Pacific, the first trans-continental railroad, the completion of which in 1869 realized the dream of Columbus: a westward trade route to the Indies. This rock from the summit of the Continental Divide on the line of the Union Pacific was placed here through the cooperation of these two railroads and dedicated October 10, 1922."
1911 | Photograph
This image from The Modern Railroad (1911) shows a number of railroad workers standing atop a wrecking train.
1861 | Photograph
Construction corps at work on the Aquia Creek and Fredericksburg Railroad.