Skip to main content

U.S. President's Railroad Commission Photographs

 Collection
Identifier: 5003 P

Scope and Contents

Inclusive date range: 1960-1962

Bulk dates: 1960



This collection consists of 1,656 images (8 film negatives and 1,648 photographs) that were taken on behalf of the railroad labor organizations to support the testimony of their members before the U.S. President's Railroad Commission regarding the crew consist dispute and their assertions regarding the necessity of the fireman position.



The railroad labor unions asked their members who worked for various carriers across the country to document their workplaces, such as train yards, stations and terminals, railroad tracks in urban and rural settings, industry sidings, industrial facilities, and locomotive engines. These photographs document the railroad facilities and equipment of 48 carriers across the United States, and were taken by more than 30 railroad employees, the majority of whom were employed as firemen and engineers.



A number of the photographs were entered into evidence by the unions, but not all of them were used in evidentiary proceedings before the Commission. Both evidentiary photographs and those not used in the proceedings are located in this collection.



The photographs are arranged into 34 Series. The series each contain photographs documenting a specific carrier in a unique location, taken by an employee or employees of that carrier on behalf of their union. Where possible, the photographs have been identifed by their exhibit number as referred to in testimony or, where that is lacking, internal numbering written on the versos of the photographs. Descriptions of the images are taken from the testimony of the photographers. For those photographs that were not included as exhibits, descriptions have been assembled from contemporaneous notes, geographical clues found in the images, and other information found in other exhibits submitted by the Organizations to the Commision.

Dates

  • 1960-1961

Language of Materials

Collection material in English

Conditions Governing Access

Access to the collections in the Kheel Center is restricted. Please contact a reference archivist for access to these materials.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection must be used in keeping with the Kheel Center Information Sheet and Procedures for Document Use.

Biographical / Historical

The U.S. Presidential Railroad Commission was established by Executive Order No. 10891 of November 1, 1960, to consider a controversy between carriers represented by the Eastern, Western, and Southeastern Carriers' Conference Committees and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, and the Switchmen's Union of North America.



Specifically, the controversy surrounded the assertion by the carriers that firemen were not needed on diesel locomotives and that their positions should be eliminated. The unions, on the other hand, maintained that modern diesel locomotives were much too complex to be operated by one engineer and that firemen were necessary to ensure safety. Seventy-nine witnesses appeared before the Commission and statements were filed on behalf of one hundred and fifty-five additional witnesses.

On February 28, 1962, the Commission filed its final report, recommending substantial changes in many of the railroad's work rules. It agreed with the carriers' position that 40,000 firemen helpers who served on freight trains were no longer needed. It also recommended that the railroads "should have an unlimited right to technological change."

See Cornell University Library's catalog entry for the final Report here.

Extent

4.5 cubic feet

Additional Description

Abstract

Photographs of railroad workers, yards, trains, buildings, hearings and cardboard exhibit materials.

Arrangement

Series I: Birmingham Southern Railroad: Industries and Yards

Series II: Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M): Boston Terminal Yards

Series III: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O): Chicago Division

Series IV: Central Railroad of New Jersey: Buttonwood Yards and Wilkes-Barre Interchange

Series V: Chicago & North Western Railway: Chicago Terminal Division, Proviso Yards

Series VI: Chicago River and Indiana Railroad: Chicago Industries and Union Stock Yards

Series VII: Denver's Burnham Yards: The Rio Grande (DRGW), Colorado & Southern, and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) facilities

Series VIII: Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway: mining and shipping operations

Series IX: Great Northern Railway: Everett and Seattle, Washington

Series X: Great Northern Railway: Minneapolis Junction

Series XI: Illinois Central Railroad: Memphis Division

Series XII: Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad: Missouri/Kansas Division, Kansas City Terminal and Yards

Series XIII: Long Island Railroad (LIRR): Car Float operations at Long Island City and Hudson River Railyards

Series XIV: Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N): Birmingham Division, yards, passenger terminals, and industries

Series XV: Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (The Milwaukee Road): locomotives and rolling stock

Series XVI: New York Central Railroad (NYCRR) Cleveland Division Collinwood Yards

Series XVII: Northern Pacific Railroad and Great Northern Railway: facilities in Spokane, Washington

Series XVIII: Norfolk and Western Railroad: Norfolk Terminal and Yards

Series XIX: New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad: Yards and Tracks from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts

Series XX: U.S. President's Railroad Commission

Series XXI: Pennsylvania Railroad: Enola Yards, Rutherford Yards, Harrisburg Penn Station

Series XXII: Pennsylvania Railroad: Philadelphia Division

Series XXIII: Reading Railroad: Rutherford Yards and Steelton Industries

Series XXIV: Southern Railway: Inman Yards and Atlanta Terminal

Series XXV: Southern Pacific Railroad: Los Angeles SoPac Yards

Series XXVI: Southern Pacific Railroad: Western Division, West Oakland Yards

Series XXVII: Southern Pacific Railroad: Pacific Division, El Paso Yards

Series XXVIII: Southern Pacific Railroad: Brooklyn Yards (Portland, Oregon)

Series XXIX: Southern Pacific Railroad: Coast Division, San Francisco

Series XXX: Texas and Pacific Railway: El Paso Yards

Series XXXI: Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis: St. Louis Union Station and surrounding yards

Series XXXII: Union Pacific Railroad: Denver Union Terminal and Freight Houses

Series XXXIII: Union Pacific Railroad: Pocatello, Idaho passenger depot and freight yards

Series XXXIV: Washington Terminal Co. Railroad: Washington D.C. Union Station and Potomac Yards

Related Materials

Related Collections: 5003: U.S. President's Railroad Commission Records 5003 MB: U.S. President's Railroad Commission Memorabilia 6040 P: Railroad Collection Photographs

Quantity:

4.5 linear ft.

Forms of Material:

Photographs.

General

Contact Information:
Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives Martin P. Catherwood Library 227 Ives Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 (607) 255-3183> kheel_center@cornell.edu http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/kheel-center
Compiled by:
Elizabeth Parker, September 11, 2013
EAD encoding:
Elizabeth Parker, December 05, 2017

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
U.S. President's Railroad Commission Photographs
Status
Completed
Author
Compiled by Elizabeth Parker
Date
December 05, 2017
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Sponsor
This collection was processed with the help of generous funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Revision Statements

  • 02/23/2024: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation & Archives Repository

Contact:
227 Ives Hall
Ithaca NY 14853

Staff Interface | Visit ArchivesSpace.org | v3.3.1 | Send Feedback or Report a Problem