Cleveland Railroads

Before there were Ford Model T’s on the road or American Airways in the sky, railroads carried passengers from coast to coast. Cleveland Public Library has an amazing collection of resources on railroads, including but not limited to: books and periodicals on the history of railroad companies and unions, annual reports, trade magazines, and photographs.

Cleveland has some interesting railroad connections. In 1910, four of the seven large Ohio railroad systems had terminals in Cleveland. These four systems were: Baltimore and Ohio, Erie, Pennsylvania, and New York Central. According to an estimate based on the U.S. Census of 1910 (Table 1) there were approximately 788 conductors employed in Cleveland in 1915.

Table 1. - Estimated number of men employed in train operating in Cleveland, 1915
Occupation	Number
Switchmen and flagmen Enginemen Brakemen Conductors Firemen	1,116 1,051 919 788 591
Total	4,465

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen are headquartered in Cleveland at the Standard Building on Ontario St. It is the nation’s oldest independent union and housed the engineers’ private bank in the 1920’s.

Also, Collinwood Railroad Yards, built by the New York Central Railroad, employed about 2,000 people in 1933 and was a major repair and freight transfer spot for the railroad company.

Do you know the name Amasa Stone? Stone was born in Massachusetts but moved to Cleveland as a teenager. He was a railroad and steel mill executive who built the Cleveland, Painesville, & Ashtabula rail line and became its president. He became president of other railroad companies as well. He is buried in our own Lake View Cemetery.

Stop by Cleveland Public Library and view our diverse railroad collection:

Selected Circulating Books:

All Aboard for Yesterday: A Nostalgic History of Railroading in Maine
Call Number: TF24 .M2 A44

Boy’s Book of World Railways
Carter, Ernest Frank
Call Number: 652 2563

I Like Trains, 1940-1954: Great Reading from the Magazine of Railroading
Morgan, David P.
Call Number: TF155.I2

Railroad and Street Transportation
Fleming, Ralph Douglas
Call Number: LA348 A3 NO. 20

Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class
Tye, Larry
Call Number: HD8039 .R362 U68

Selected Reference (Non-Circulating Books):

Freight Train Economies
Mann, Bertram Haskell
652.M315F

New York Central Railroad, 1831-1915
New York Central Railroad
HE2791 .N558

Stamps and Railways
Watson, James
HE6183 .R3 W37 1960X

Selected Periodicals and Trade Journals: