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Track Going Back Century of Transcontinental Railroading, The SC 103 photos
The Track Going Back By Everett DeGolyer Copyright 1969 Soft cover 103 photos
The one-hundred year anniversary of the driving of the golden (or iron) spike which occurs May 10, 1969, is both occasion for national celebration and for some degree of regret.
On May 10, 1869, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of this nation were united by iron rail. The alternative transportation methods of the day: stagecoach, Conestoga wagon, clipper ship, steamship, and handcart left much to be desired as to comfort, speed, safety, and degree of utility.
It is difficult to realize in this thoroughly highway-oriented era what a difference the completion of the overland route made. A trip from the East to West Coast that once required months was reduced to days.
The irony of the present-day situation is that the Centennial of the completion of the nation's first transcontinental railroad route will also nearly come close to being the terminal date of the expiration of transcontinental passenger train travel. It may very well be that the next five years will bring the very last run of any transcontinental train whatsoever.
It has therefore been exceptionally difficult to figure out precisely how to pitch the artistic content of the commemorative exhibit that has been devised to celebrate the culmination of the nation's constructive efforts that is being placed before you. The means to accomplish such an exhibit are not lacking, nor are they unknown to the authors of this show. Glass plate negatives of many of the great pioneer western photographers exist literally by the ton and are proudly and carefully preserved by a wide variety of custodial institutions. The Golden Era of railroading coincides precisely with the golden era of photography. For this reason, the exhibit at hand had to be expressed in the medium of photography. And what better medium? The efforts of A. J. Russell, C. R. Savage, F. J. Haynes, W. H. Jackson, H. H. Buchwalter, L. C. McClure, Asahel Curtis, and J. E. Stimson represent the best work done during what might be well described as the ponderous period of photography. A show representing the original efforts of any one of these pioneer photographers could be presented from the original negatives still in existence and would be of stunning artistic effect. Each photographer was a master of his particular time, place and era. It would be entirely feasible, and artistically beneficial, to have an exhibit of 300 L. C. McClure photographs in wallboard size enlargements of the building of the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway in Colorado as it would be to present a like cross-section of the efforts of F. Jay Haynes in depicting the westward progress of the Northern Pacific Railway across the State of Montana.
It might be noted that as the size of the impedimenta required became less that a huge amateur bevy of photographers arose that were anxious and, what is more to the point, highly capable, of recording the interesting visual bill-of-fare that is afforded by the American railway scene. Certainly, one would be forced to acknowledge the efforts of Fred Jukes, J. Foster Adams, H. H. Arey, A. W. Johnson. Gerald M. Best,
Donald Duke, Lucius Beebe, Charles M. Clegg, Roland Colions, S. R. Wood, Otto Perry, Douglas C. Wornom, James Ehernberger, R. H. Kindig, and Richard Steinheimer to name only a few of the more technically skillful railroad buffs who have specialized in the railroad scene as it exists west of the Mississippi River. It might be noted that many of the efforts of the pioneer moderns were made despite the heartfelt resistance of the railroad companies whose action they wished to photograph. The same companies, now having depleted their files of the "obsolete" material they once used to maintain, are now coming back to the same buffs, whom they were formerly so careful to usher off their premises, for equivalents of the same materials that they had discarded.
We have therefore elected the somewhat odd-ball approach of utilizing modern photographs to depict aspects of railroading that were current when Jay Gould was still the terror of Wall Street. The most wondrous aspect of the American railroad industry is that its practices, structural personifications, and equipment have not basically changed since the first steam railroad was built in this country in 1829.
Let the author of this book speak both from his heart and from his own personal knowledge and observation of American railroads since that day in September, 1933, when he first raised a Box-Brownie No. 2 at a railroad locomotive. Since that totally unremarkable date will pass by unnoticed by posterity, it seems worthy to mention that he has since photographed some 25,000 railroad subjects single-handed and acquired in one way or another 65,000 negatives made by other individuals. There are few industries more photogenic than a railroad and the complexities of making a truly representative group of photographs of the paraphernalia of even one railroad are beyond belief. To cite but one example, the author has been attempting to photograph all remaining structures on the former Erie and Lackawanna railroads west from Hoboken, N. J. to Susquehanna, Pennsylvania and to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, respectively. To date, he has visited over 188 different locations and the task is still only about three-quarters complete!
Therefore, little of the retrospective aspects of railroading will be included between the covers of this book. Original prints of the work of Russell, Jackson and others are included in plenty in the show itself, but not many have been included in this catalog as a number of books have currently been published that contain the work of the pioneer photographers in extenso.
Two major efforts have been made in the selection for the show and for this catalog. The first is to show the railroad in its environment. On the western transcontinental railroads, rugged topography is the dominant characteristic and an effort has been made to emphasize this all-important factor. Another environmental factor of importance is climate. Railroads are truly twenty-four-hour-a-day, allweather operations of astounding reliability, and this is nowhere better exemplified than in those operations of the roads that extend singly, or in combination, from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to the Pacific Coast.
The second attempt is to demonstrate visually that one railroad is different than another. In the steam era, this was easier than it has since become. One could look at a locomotive, car, or station, and almost immediately recognize its provenance. The diesel locomotive, the standard-design box car, and the stainless steel coach have done much to obliterate the distinction of the mechanical idiosyncrasies of the various carriers. The rural station is now, particularly in the West, conspicuous by its absence. Replacement of the pioneer structures (and one station was all that many communities have ever had), if made at all, has been by Bailey buildings of great simplicity and ingenuity but of no architectural distinction.
A minor effort has been made to illustrate what might be termed railroad archaeology. Many of the pioneer lines (though but one of the transcontinentals, the Colorado Midland) have been abandoned. Further abandonments would seem to be both desirable and enlightened as consolidation of formerly independent operations ensues. The author would hope that he has indicated that, even when the trains and tracks have vanished, there is often much left to record.
As previously indicated, available historical photographs employed are in limited number. A large portion of the modern-era ones are now historical - as indicated in the captions, many of the trains, particularly passenger trains, have made their last runs and many of the diesels have been replaced by larger and more powerful units. So in a real sense this is more or less of a historical coverage of the western railroad scene even though it might not appear to be so.
The author would like to acknowledge a special debt to a few of the many people involved in the assembly of this exhibit. Most of the copy work was done by Gammon Studios in Dallas. George Kincaid, of Dallas, furnished many of the enlarged prints. Slides were made by Mrs. Linda Lorenz of the Amon Carter Museum. The concept of the exhibit was that of Mr. Mitchell A. Wilder and his capable staff.
The individual firms, institutions and photographers are individually credited. To them, my gratitude is boundless, as without their efforts there would be no show.
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