Founded in 1846, Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR) was a leading industrial and transportation force throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection features a cyanotype and a photographic copy print of an image depicting the first passenger car created for PRR, most likely taken in 1893 in relation to Chicago World's Columbian Exposition.

Allen H. Tweddle (1949-) is a retired railroad conductor and avid collector of railroadiana. Railroadiana are artifacts related to current or former railways. This small collection consists of photographs, prints, and note cards related to railroad locomotives. There are photographs of train stations, train cars and engines and one stereoview showing an elevated railway street scene of New York City. There is an album containing many different Amtrak trains, several blotters from the Association of American Railroads, and a few series of note cards. Notably there is a large collection of railroad locomotive trading cards from the Topps Chewing Gum Company series called "Rails and Sails" published in 1954.

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Amtrak, is a passenger rail service in the United States. This item is a standard twelve-month calendar, with an image on the top portion of each month featuring an Amtrak train.

Baldwin Locomotive Works was a manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 until 1972. The company was originally located in Philadelphia and then later moved to Eddystone, Pennsylvania. This album contains twenty two photographs of Baldwin Locomotive Works train engines, train cars, and parts. The album appears to have been created by company President S.M. Vauclain for the Trades Exhibit at the Constitutional Centennial Celebration.

The Budd Company was a manufacturer of steel automobiles, passenger rail cars, and other transportation products. This collection’s photographs focuses on the Budd Company rail division with some images of automobiles and wheel products and manufacturing. The bulk of the materials date from the 1940s, 1950s and the 1980s. The collection is organized into five series: Company executives and employees; Plants and manufacturing; Products; Advertising; and Films and videos.

The Budd Company was a manufacturer of steel automobiles, passenger rail cars, and other transportation products. This collection of photographs include railcar interiors, exteriors, and construction progress images of vehicles for the Budd Company customers between 1931 and 1987. Fifty-four railroads are represented in the collection, but half consist of only a small number of images.

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 celebrated the one hundreth anniversary of American Independence. Held in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, it was the first major U.S. world's fair. This collection contains Centennial Exhibition photographs, albums, scrapbooks, and ephemera

The Chicago Railroad Fair was the last exposition that featured railroads as its theme. It marked the centennial of the arrival of railroads to Chicago and their role in westward expansion. The exposition was held in 1948 and 1949 in Chicago. This collection consists of souvenir postcards and miniature photographic views of the buildings and locomotives at the Fair.

The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was incorporated in October 1974. It was formed under the auspices of the United States Railway Association, a quasi-public agency established for the purpose of solving the problems of bankrupt railroads in the Northeast and Midwest. The portfolio contains sixty-eight examples of proof copies of advertisements created by the advertising agency of Ogilvy & Mather, Inc. (later Ogilvy & Mather Partners, Inc.), between Conrail's start up in April 1976 and 1990. There are also two pages of proxy instructions that appear to date from the first CSX takeover bid in 1997.

The Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) was incorporated in October 1974. It was formed under the auspices of the United States Railway Association, a quasi-public agency established for the purpose of solving the problems of bankrupt railroads in the Northeast and Midwest. The Conrail photograph collection consists of a large number of images from its company files, but the majority of the material comes from its predecessor companies: Pennsylvania Railroad and Penn Central Transportation Company. These items are predominanatly composed of photographs, negatives, transparencies, lantern slides, and films.

David Harrison Cope (1913-2001) held a lifelong interest in railroads and, in particular, steam locomotives. He began collecting photographs at an early age. This collection primarily consists of black and white photographs and negatives of steam locomotives from a variety of railroads, but it includes some other rolling stock, station photos, related railroad items such as coaling stations and some street railroads, interurbans, and trolley images.

The Chicago Railroad Fair was the first exposition after the Second World War and the last exposition that featured railroads as its theme. It marked the centennial of the arrival of railroads to Chicago and their role in westward expansion. This is a postcard of the narrow gauge Deadwood Central train that carried visitors around the fairground.

Edward R. Stickel (1928-2008) worked for the Penn Central Transportation Company, Amtrak, and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). His collection consists of copies of official documents relating to the commuter rail operations of SEPTA and its predecessors.

The War Department of the United States Government contracted with the DuPont Company to build and run a smokeless powder plant called the Old Hickory plant on the Cumberland River near Nashville, Tennessee during World War I. These panoramic photographs show overall views of DuPont Company's Old Hickory smokeless powder plant, also views of exterior and interior details.

Frank A. Weer (1932-2019) was an employee of the Reading Company and an enthusiastic photographer of all things related to railroads, specifically in Pennsylvania. Fascinated by trains from a young age, Weer spent time taking photographs of the passing rolling stock. He developed his own photographs, and over time, he established a vast collection of photographic prints of steam locomotives and other rolling stock, as well as the railroad tracks and structures with which the railroad was affiliated. The Reading Company, where Weer worked for thirteen years, was an influential railroad company that served the economic development of the Greater Philadelphia area for over 100 years. Before it became a booming passenger railroad, the Reading Company began transporting anthracite coal. The passenger "ridership" of the Reading Company reached its peak in the 1950s. The company went bankrupt in 1971, and the passenger services were taken over by the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority by 1974. This collection documents the construction and expansion of the Reading Railroad and the company's tangible property and human resources throughout the twentieth century. The collection consists of negatives (glass plate and film), photographic prints, and color slide transparencies. The creator established a chronological order, which has been maintained. The collection is arranged into five series: Structures and objects, Passenger stations, Rolling stock, People, and Frank A. Weer's personal slides.

The Geo D. Whitcomb Company was a manufacturer of coal mining machinery and industrial locomotives. The album is a factory salesman sample photograph album for the gasoline powered Whitcomb mining and switching engines. There are two Whitcomb catalogs and an original offprint from the 1932 Railway Age.

The Pennsylvania Railroad Company was the largest railroad in the United States in terms of corporate assets and traffic from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the decline of the northeast's and midwest's dominance of manufacturing. Harry Richmond Hippler (1875-1958) was a pharmacist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and an avid amateur photographer. This collection contains negatives primarily of Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) train cars, both interior and exterior views. There are also images of train tracks, bridges, construction and other railroad related images. The bulk of the photographs date from the 1910s through the 1940s. It is possible that Harry R. Hippler was the photographer of some of the photographs in the collection.

The Lehigh Valley Railroad was a railroad company in the northeastern United States primarily used to haul anthracite coal from Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe), Pennsylvania, to Easton, Pennsylvania. This collection consists of twenty-two glass negatives and one box. Most photographs depict the rolling stock of Lehigh Valley Railroad dating to approximately some point between 1934 and 1948, based on engine numbers.

From 1925 to 1958, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company issued a series of advertising calendars, each measuring over two feet square. Of the thirty-three calendars published, twenty-eight were illustrated by Grif Teller (1899-1993). This small collection consists of six posters featuring the paintings from the 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1954, and 1955 Pennsylvania Railroad advertising calendars. The title of the painting and the words "Pennsylvania Railroad" appear in the border beneath each image.

Collectors of railroad memorabilia often also collected postcards. Railroad postcards generally picture stations, engines, bridges, route scenery, railcar interiors, and accidents. Some collectors sought specific railroads. This collection is over a thousand postcards related to railroads. The collection has been arranged into two series: Railroad stations and Railroad cars and trains. This is an artificial collection assembled from various donors.

The Reading Company, chartered in 1871, became the holding company for the system of railroads, canals and coalmines assembled between 1833 and 1896 by its predecessor, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. The collection consists of photographs [negatives, blueprints and other graphic materials relating to the Reading Company and its predecessor, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company.

The Reading Company, chartered in 1871, became the holding company for the system of railroads, canals and coal mines assembled between 1833 and 1896 by its predecessor, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. The collection consists of graphic materials relating to the Reading Company and its predecessor, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company

Chartered in 1871, Reading Company was the holding company for the system of railroads, canals and coal mines assembled by the predecessor Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company between 1833 and 1896. The collection consists of the corporate records of the Reading Company (1871-1976), the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company (1833-1896), the Philadelphia & Reading Railway Company (1896-1923), and 159 predecessors and subsidiaries.

The Reading Company owned, leased or held a controlling interest in rail lines throughout southeastern and central Pennsylvania, with branches stretching as far north as Scranton and as far west as Williamsport and Shippensburg. The collections consists of twenty-five photographs of overnight accommodations (including rest houses and company sponsored Y.M.C.A. buildings) which provided accommodations for Reading Railroad employees at various end-of-the-line locations.

Red Arrow Lines, Inc. was a suburban transit company. This collection contains photographs of Red Arrow Lines transit vehicles and stations that were used in book R. DeGraw, Red Arrow Lines.

Robert Bruce Watson (1931-) was the Coordinator for the Northeast Corridor Project for the Penn Central Railroad. This collection contains photographs and postcards of the high-speed equipment used in the Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project, including exteriors, interiors and details of trucks and other parts. There are several photographs of speakers at a train dedication event in 1996.

The collection consists of materials documenting Watson's work for PRR, particularly mechanical engineering and rolling stock. Records largely focus on the development of PRR locomotives and passenger cars in the mid-twentieth century.

Robert B. Watson (1931-) was a mechanical engineer who worked on the development of high-speed trains between 1966 and 1998. This collection consists of photographs related to railroads in Pennsylvania and New York, dating from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century.

Charles Robson was a nineteenth century author, editor and publisher of various biographies and histories, mostly about Pennsylvania. This collection consists of four engravings from the book "The Manufactories and Manufacturers of Pennsylvania of the Nineteenth Century," edited by Charles Robson and published by Galaxy Publishing Co., Philadelphia in 1875.

William McKinley Keller (1901-1974) was a railroad engineer and executive who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Association of American Railroads. The collection of papers relate to his engineering career working for the two companies as well as a consultant to the railroad industry and some personal correspondence throughout his career.