Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
View of town of Murrieta in Riverside County, California, showing houses, windmills, and other buildings. The Murrieta railroad depot of the Santa Fe Railroad is at center (see related image for closer view).
photCL_555_01_1956
Visual Materials
Image of people standing at the Summerland passenger train depot while the baggage car of a Southern Pacific Railroad train is unloaded in the distance, in Summerland, Santa Barbara County, California. Signs read "Summerland to San Francisco," and "Post Office."
photCL_555_01_2062
Visual Materials
View of the Santa Fe train station in South Pasadena, California, with railroad tracks and crossing gate. Signs on the building say "Santa Fe" and "South Pasadena."
photCL_555_01_879
Visual Materials
Image of the railroad depot of the California Southern Railroad Company on D Street in San Diego, California.
photCL_555_01_2038
Visual Materials
Image of a map of the United States showing the railroad routes from Kansas to California and Mexico of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, and connecting lines; map verso contains panels with railroad timetables, promotional descriptions, and fold-up map covers with images of a grenadier soldier holding a sword and charging across the country in a helmet with a locomotive head lamp and billowing smoke stack, and a view of a steam locomotive approaching on tracks inset among palm trees.
priJLC_TRAN_001053
Image not available
Rare Books
This collection consists of railroad photographs, ephemera and publications, 1829-2010, with the bulk of material from the early- to mid-20th century. The focus is chiefly locomotives and trains (steam and diesel) of major railroads and interurban electric railways of the United States and Canada. Also represented in the collection are smaller shortline and narrow-gauge railroads; other foreign railroads; streetcars (or trolleys); and burgeoning light rail and subway systems. Most of the ephemera is printed material produced by railroad companies for promotional and business purposes, such as annual reports, brochures, route maps and guides, timetables, tickets, dining menus, stationery, stock certificates, bond coupons and other items. There are also many city and state tourist guidebooks describing sights along rail routes or promoting land available for farming, mining or home-building across the United States. Also included are items produced for or by railroad employees, such as instruction and safety manuals, train orders, freight bills and in-house newsletters. Railroad industry publications, statistics and reports can be found in the American Association of Railroads files, which are part of Donald Duke's subject files on railroad-related topics. Throughout the ephemera files are newspaper and journal clippings, often from scarce small press and trade publications such as The Railway and Engineering Review, The Railroad Gazette, The Santa Fe Magazine, The Western Railroader, Railway Age and others. In addition to railroad history, other topics of social and cultural historical interest in the ephemera are: Depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in mass-marketed train travel brochures. There are many examples that reflect American cultural and class stereotypes in the early- to mid-20th century. Selected files are noted in the container list. Occupational safety and health: See railroad worker safety manuals and accident prevention literature in ephemera files. History of food and drink: See numerous dining and beverage menus throughout Railroads and Foreign Railroads ephemera files (not always noted in container list). History of graphic design and typography: See examples of early- and mid- 20th century popular styles in printed ephemera throughout collection. Photographs and negatives: The photographs depict locomotives, freight and passenger trains, logging railroads, electric interurbans and streetcars across the United States. This was primarily a publishers file of ready-for-press photographs, which are almost all 8 x 10-inch black-and-white prints, made approximately 1950s-1980s. The photographs were made chiefly by various amateur train photographers, including Donald Duke, but most are uncredited. There are some copy prints (photographs of other photographs), and a few original photographs from the late 19th-early 20th century. Some photographs have locations and dates written on the back, but many are unidentified other than the name of the railroad. There are a few files on Ward Kimball (1914-2002), one of the original animators for Walt Disney Studios and an avid rail enthusiast. There are some photographs, biographical materials, and a file on his personal backyard narrow-gauge steam railroad, Grizzly Flats Railroad, in San Gabriel, California.
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