Railroads

This week we provide you with a series of images and links related to railroad history during the 1970s. We tend to think that railroads ceased to be important after the interstate system was built, but the following links prove that that was not the case.

As just one example, consider the case of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak, which didn’t start running until 1971 with funding provided by the Rail Passenger Service Act signed by Richard Nixon.

General

For information on the troubled Early Years of Amtrak by American-Rails.com, visit their website at http://www.american-rails.com/early-years-of-amtrak.html.

See American-Rails.com at http://www.american-rails.com/index.html for a wealth of information on railroad history throughout the U.S, including a great links page.

The Western America Railroad Museum in Barstow, CA presents images of Southwest railroading at http://www.barstowrailmuseum.org/. See also the Western Railway Museum in Solano County, CA at http://www.wrm.org/.

Amtrak Historical Society, http://www.amtrakhistoricalsociety.com/

Regional

A history of railroading in Montana is available at American-Rails.com’s website at http://www.american-rails.com/montana-railroading.html. See http://www.american-rails.com/washington-railroading.html for information on Washington and http://www.american-rails.com/idaho-railroading.html for Idaho.

For more information on the fate of the Milwaukee Road see RailroadForums.com at http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=929. This site contains a lot of historical photos of the trains along this route. Also see the Milwaukee Road Historical Association history at http://www.mrha.com/history.cfm.

For photos of the Milwaukee Road Railroad, see the Gene H. Lawson Collection at http://www.eburg.com/~ghlawson/GeneHLawsonCollection.html.

The Milwaukee Road Online website contains many historical photographs and information at http://www.trainweb.org/milwaukee/homepage.html. See their link “What Really Happened?” For the story of the Milwaukee Road in the 1970s.

For information on the Copper King Express, including a history section with photographs, see http://www.copperkingexpress.com/.

Tacoma’s Local Railroads Today, Puget Sound Model Railroad Engineers http://www.psmre.org/hist-todaysrr.htm#amtrak.

For information on the St. Maries River Railroad, a shortline in Idaho built in 1980 on the old Milwaukee Road tracks, see http://www.angelfire.com/mt/sd40/page11.html.