Site information
Credits and thanks
While the vast majority of documents and images on this site are made from originals in my personal collection of railroadiana, some of the artifacts on this site were kindly loaned to me by friends and acquaintances who share my interest in preserving and sharing information with others.
Some material was found online without attribution; in some cases I did not capture the web address of this material; unfortunately, I can not thank the contributor in these cases.
I would like to give credit and thanks to the following individuals who provided material for this site:
Railroad right-of-way maps
Bob Lalich shared several Chicago & Western Indiana right-of-way maps that he digitized.
Russell Fierce loaned me various other right-of-way maps from his collection for me to digitize and share online.
Signaling plans
J. J. Schrader loaned Pere Marquette and Chessie System CTC diagrams for me to digitize and share online.
Russell Fierce loaned me various circuit plans from the Chicago & North Western's Mayfair and Grayland interlockings from his collection in order that I could digitize and share online.
T. W. Hunter was the last signal engineer for the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, and graciously provided some old signal plans from that railroad.
Doug Nipper loaned the priceless vintage interlocking diagram books from the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, along with the 1936 interlocking diagram books for the Belt Railway of Chicago and Chicago & Western Indiana.
These diagram books are part of the collection of the Danville Junction Chapter of the NRHS, located in the Rossville Depot Railroad Museum in Rossville, Illinois. The late Ray Curl deserves our thanks for having preserved these books in the first place. Ray was a C&EI and Missouri Pacific railroader, and an expert C&EI historian.
The diagram books of the BRC and C&WI found their way into the C&EI's files because these two Chicago-area terminal railroads were partly-owned by C&EI at one time.
Other, more recent C&WI interlocking diagrams are from my own collection.
Doug Nipper also loaned me signal plans from the Milwaukee Road Terre Haute line. Doug had the foresight to preserve these plans so that they didn't perish in a landfill after this unique part of the Milwaukee Road system was abandoned in the early Eighties.
Bill Saenger shared digital copies from the book of New York Central Southern Region interlocking diagrams in his collection.
The late Mike Spencer loaned me the 1982 Indiana Harbor Belt interlocking diagram book, as well as various locking plans of the IHB's State Line Tower (during C&WI and IHB ownership), in order that I could digitize them to share here.
Ben Laughran provided some interesting signal material from the Rock Island and other railroads.
The Minnesota Transportation Museum provided digitized signal plans from the Northern Pacific for me to clean up and share here.
I apologize if I have missed anyone who contributed material that wound up on this site.
Railroad incident and accident reports
Railroad incident and accident reports shed light on a variety of subjects like operating practices, equipment failure, and human error. An example is the U. S. Department of Transportation website containing investigations of railroad accidents between 1911 and 1993.
The DOT site is a rich collection of accident reports. Unfortunately, the search tools are poor, and the site lacks the capability to link to specific reports. The same can be said about the websites run by some of the investigative agency websites worldwide.
Typically, the incidents and accidents I find most interesting relate to signaling, traffic control, and movement authority. These interests guided my selection of reports copied to this site, though there are some exceptions where the content of the report is interesting for other reasons.
The rail investigative bodies of some nations are vested with the authority to investigate incidents like "signal passed at danger" that could have led to a serious accident under different circumstances.
By comparison, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in the United States has the authority to investigate only incidents that result in death or significant property damage, or which involve a passenger train.
Accident reports produced by an agency of the United States government are in the public domain.
Various maps and other documents
Maps from several sources are also included on this site. These maps are in the public domain because they are works of the United States government and/or because they were produced before 1924, meaning that any United States copyright has lapsed.
Some of the units of the United States government whose documents are represented here include:
- Library of Congress map collection.
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coast Survey's Historical Map & Chart Collection.
- U. S. Geological Survey topographic maps.
The Sanborn fire insurance maps were digitized by the Map Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and are provided here courtesy of the Library.
License
This website (www.jonroma.net) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Except for material copyrighted by third parties, material on this site may be copied and distributed subject to the terms of the above-mentioned license, provided that any such copy or distribution be attributed to this site.
Please note that
About me
I have been an avid photographer since my early twenties, several decades ago. The dominant subject matter for my photography is railroad action scenes, and images depicting infrastructure like signals.
The majority of images that have online are shared on Flickr.com. My photostream can be found under my Flickr user name jonroma.
