egyptian_i n our MAINLINES collection, we feature locomotives and rolling stock, in both passenger and freight service, from mainline operations across the southern and eastern United States. Major portions of this collection date back to the steam-to-diesel transition era of the late 1950s and 60s, including several collections of "fallen flags" — mainline and regional roads that went defunct or were eventually absorbed into larger Class 1 mainline systems. Our contemporary collections feature Amtrak, CSX Transportation, and Norfolk Southern, as well as other current mainlines and regionals in the southern and eastern United States. Join trackside and watch for green signals!

paritius_r iding on trains is to him an essentially esthetic satisfaction. He sleeps better in a Pullman than at home. He admires inordinately the ingenuity of their washroom appliances and all the internal economy of the car builders' devising. He is soothed by the cornfields of Iowa or alarmed by the Colorado Rockies when viewed from the lounge of the Forty-niner or the Exposition Flyer. He eats prodigiously in the restaurant car of the Super-Chief and he is gentled and delighted by brews, vintages and strong waters on anything from the Congregational Limited to the Daylight. These are the softer and sissier aspects of his devotion.

Lucius Beebe, of himself / 1940

Fallen Flags

paritius_t he term "Fallen Flags" describes those railroads whose corporate names have been dissolved through merger, bankruptcy, or liquidation. At one time the United States boasted nearly 140 Class I railroads. Today, many of these classic railroads are but a memory. The older folks reading this can remember those bygone days when corporations like the legendary Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, and prosperous Southern Railway all served American regions. And who can forget our country’s first common carrier, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which survived for 160 years before disappearing into CSX Transportation in 1987. There are many areas of the industry to study, ranging from locomotives to streamliners. However, few remain as popular or as enjoyable as the venerable "Fallen Flag." They defined the regions they served while providing invaluable transportation needs for local communities.

American-Rails.com

sou_ad Central of Georgia Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Central Gulf Railroad ic2_ad1 kcs_ad1 Louisville & Nashville Railroad Norfolk & Western Railway Seaboard Coast Line Railroad west_ad

paritius_e verywhere the railroad went, it created something as if by magic. The British had invented the railroad, had figured out how to make it work. But they were aghast at what Americans did with their invention. Mostly using the same gauge as the British railroads, Americans were more generous with the loading gauge, making it possible to build enormous locomotives (too big to be safe, they said in England). Furthermore, these crazy Americans built lines to everywhere — even to nowhere at all. Nobody in Europe would have dreamed of building a railroad into uninhabited territory. You had to have two great metropolises — Birmingham and Manchester, let's say. But Americans believed in this agency of growth, saw it as a way of creating their civilization from nothing, and laid tracks into the wide open spaces. And then, where the railroad went, settlers immediately followed.

George H. Douglas / All Aboard! The Railroad in American Life

Amtrak

Contemporary

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Family Trees

paritius_t he present North American railway network has its origins in thousands of railroad companies that over the years have been melded together in various ways to form seven vast freight railways, hundreds of short-line and regional systems, and a host of publicly funded passenger networks. As railroads have come together, new corporate banners have replaced classic railroad names. For example, today's CSXT represents routes formerly operated by more than a dozen classic late-steam-era railroads, including companies as varied as the old Monon, Western Maryland, and Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac. While the large railroads have swallowed up most of the old lines, a few classic names survive. Florida East Coast has served essentially the same route since the end of steam. Though FEC is owned by a major corporation, it hasn't been blended into one of the massive railroad networks. Other classic railroad names survive solely on paper or exist as latent components of larger systems.

Brian Solomon / North American Railroad Family Trees: Industry's Mergers and Evolution

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Featured Family

Rebel Routes

Mainlines
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egyptianur roots are firmly planted in the Deep South — especially in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As such, we've always had a keen interest in the southern ends of the Gulf Mobile & Ohio and Illinois Central north-south mainlines. This interest includes their corporate predecessors and their many successors: mainlines, regionals, and shortline spinoffs. That's why we've gathered all our images and materials here in this Rebel Routes family tree collection. Old times here are not forgotten!

ymv_ad New Orleans Great Northern Gulf, Mobile & Northern Mobile & Ohio
Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Central Gulf Railroad shoreline_ad2
Gulf & Mississippi MidSouth Rail
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See also our Rebel Routes featured Shortlines and Preservation collections

Regionals

Steam Era
New Orleans Great Northern Gulf, Mobile & Northern Mobile & Ohio
Diesel Era
ble_ad Buffalo & Pittsburgh Gulf & Mississippi MidSouth Rail Norfolk Southern - original noupt_ad

paritius_i ndustrialization requires a transportation system that allows the efficient movement of raw materials to factories and of finished goods to markets. There was no such system in the United States in its early years, and thus there was no domestic market extensive enough to justify large-scale production. But efforts were under way that would ultimately remove the transportation obstacle. In river transportation, a new era began with the development of the steamboat. Meanwhile, the era that would become known as the turnpike era had begun too; toll roads ran from town to town. Although the railroads played but a secondary role in America's transportation system in the 1820's and 30's, the work of the railroad pioneers became the basis for the great mid-century surge of railroad building that would link the nation together as never before. Railroads eventually became the nation's number one transportation system, and remained so until the construction of the interstate highway system halfway during the twentieth century.

Marieke Van Ophem / The Iron Horse

All Mainlines

All Mainline Collections


Lagniappe

Classic Timetables

Classic Freight

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collection

Links

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