Railroads – Images of Trains and Tracks

As an editor at Emerging Civil War, I am so excited about our series on railroads! Our authors are working together and contributing some wonderful articles, and you are going to love what’s “coming down the tracks” next week in the blog schedule.

I’ve been doing some reading on Virginia’s railroads and then found a research “rabbit trail” to railroads in Tennessee that connected to the Old Dominion’s tracks. (Those research summaries and articles will be coming later in the series…)

However, I also enjoy looking for historic photographs – especially on Library of Congress’s website – and found some real treasures this week. It was hard to pick favorites, but here are eight that particularly caught my eye and made me wonder at the technology, bridge construction, or unknown persons in the images.

The text beneath the photos is the original captions found on the archive website. Do you have a favorite image?

Photograph shows the ornately decorated locomotive J.H. Devereux, of the United States Military Railroad with two crew members on board outside the roundhouse at the Alexandria station.

Railroad construction worker straightening track; pile of twisted rails in background. 1862-63

 Manassas Junction, Va., after its evacuation by the Confederates.

Group of the Construction Corps U.S. Military Rail Roads, with working tools, etc., Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1864.

 Bridge on Orange & Alexandria Railroad

Potomac Creek bridge – Acquia (i.e. Aquia) Creek Railroad built by U. S. Military Rail Road construction corps in nine days from standing timber.

Hanover Junction Pennsylvania, 1863, railroad station. Detail of engine in yard and waiting crowd.

Chattanooga, Tennessee. Confederate prisoners at railroad depot, 1864.