Railworks America

Howdy all, I'm interested in seeing if there is anyone that collects railroad memorabilia and would like to share their collections here. (Admins, please remove if not allowed)

I myself enjoy picking through antique stores looking for goodies...

ET44C4 wrote:Howdy all, I'm interested in seeing if there is anyone that collects railroad memorabilia and would like to share their collections here. (Admins, please remove if not allowed)

I myself enjoy picking through antique stores looking for goodies...

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That's pretty neat! I have a bunch of stuff from my dads side of the family. Have some old engineering books from the steam era CA. 1908/9. The biggest pieces that I have include a Crossbuck, two red crossing lenses, and then a friend owned MILW Switch stand in my back yard.

I've got about 25 railway lanterns (100 or so non railway), lots of keys, timetables, various pieces of hardware and doodads, what do you want to see? I collect pretty much exclusively Canadian stuff, a few American keys I'm likely going to get rid of.
The lanterns are my favourite, unless it's something real special I only collect tall globe lanterns.



This is a CPR standard train order semaphore from about 1915-20. It's the original blade too, I have the original design from CPRs records so I can repaint it as original, however I kinda get the feeling it was a retirement gift for a station master. I've seen retirement gifts that use old hardware before so that's my guess, and I don't have the heart to strip it if it's a retirement gift.

ErikGorbiHamilton - That's sounds like a great collection you have there!

Drew - You have a wonderful collection, and I love how you displayed the items. Your pieces are in great condition as well. What types of hardware do you have?

In that photo I've got a ticket validator out of the CNR Listowel, Ontario station, the dater die in it is from the CNR St. Johns City station in New Bruinswick, Grand trunk brass table lamp, CNR (I'm leaning toward Canadian Northern) axe, Berth key, Intercolonial playing cards and some more stuff. I've bought a switchstand, but I haven't been able to pick it up yet, doesn't quite fit in the trunk of a Ford Focus...

A lot of great pieces of history right there. Thanks for sharing!

I believe this is my oldest piece; a Katy public timetable from 1934.

Public Timetables are some of my favourites. The colours, advertising and maps are excellent in PTT's, not to mention the information you can get from them.

Another favourite is my Dominion Atlantic Railway PTT from 1903. The DAR was exceptional and knew very early on how important tourism was to Nova Scotia (still remains one of if not the most important industry in NS). The DAR created tourist destinations like Grand Pre Memorial Park, which is now a National Historic site, and would even go as far as to run special trains ahead of passenger trains just to spray water on the tracks so the passengers wouldn't be bothered by dust being kicked up. The DAR's service is well reflected in their timetables. A big part of the DAR was also their ferries, which is why the cover is their newest ship, and they even included diagrams of their ships in the timetables so you knew exactly where your room was.

That's an excellent piece, Drew!

Southern Pacific timetables with mailing envelopes. Found them at a small antique store in Strasburg, PA.

I only have 2 switch locks and keys, as well as a Nickel Plate Road passenger schedule from 1955. But my grandfather has a stock certificate from the Nickel Plate, a NKP lantern, switch locks from NKP, Monon, LN, and he has a fireman shovel from the Lake Erie an Western.

ET44C4 wrote:

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Southern Pacific timetables with mailing envelopes. Found them at a small antique store in Strasburg, PA.

With hand typed letters no less. What a difference with today, where you have to get all your travel information from the internet.

Here's a Canadian Pacific Railway bellbottom made by Dietz. Has an 1895 patent date and likely made right around that time.

Great piece! I've been looking at purchasing a lantern, but would only be interested in an ATSF one. I'm trying to figure out what an average price would be for one, as I certainly don't want to buy an overpriced item I can find much cheaper elsewhere.

I've seen the yellow railroad cross-buck road signs sell for around $200-$300 bucks at a large train show. Just recently, I bought the same type of sign at an antique store in VA Beach for $40.