Nostalgia & History > old trainorders.

Are any of y'all interested in old trainorders? My dad was, and I've got quite a collection of them that I inherited from him, as well as a few that I've picked up here and there myself. My dad worked as a boomer telegrapher from about 1914 until about 1937, when he settled down to become one of the homeguard on the D&RGW. Oh, dad took off a little time from the railroad now and then because he was also interested in pioneering aviation, and radio, plus movie making, but railroading was his bread and butter, and he took pictures of it and he collected odds and ends of it. If Pop were still alive, he'd be well over a hundred years old now. His generation wasn't the technological generation, but it was the generation that gave our generation the technology. Anyway, I get sidetracked sometimes, advancing age you know.

Here's an order from Laramie Wyoming in 1924. Pop worked for the UP when the UP was just the UP. I don't know how long he was with the UP, he told me once that he'd worked at least two weeks for 17 different railroads.

Con

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Although my dad didn't copy this order, he kept a copy of this order. This is the order that was issued that took the old tunnel at Tennessee Pass out of service and put the new tunnel in service, with instructions to crews how operations were to be done at TP from now on.

Con

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xtra1188w Wrote:
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> Are any of y'all interested in old trainorders?
>You bet. Go for it Con!
Africansteam

Very interested in old TO's, Con. Especially western roads.

Dick
Reading Trainorders from offshore Alaska

I am seriously interested in old train orders (is that an oxymoron, are there any new train orders?) I'd like to see, and potentially buy any and all that you have.

I really enjoy perusing through old train orders and learning about how things were done back in the proverbial 'day'. My great-grandfather spent 30 years as a station agent for the Northern Pacific Ry. (and was the last agent) at Myers, MT. I have alot of stuff he saved, including train orders, from his 40+ year stint with the NP. Here is the oldest train order in my collection; it is a Form 31X (the crew had to stop the train and sign for the order as opposed to a Form 19) from Rosebud, MT. The locomotives noted on it (#2426-#2389 coupled;#2437;#2431) are all 2-6-2 Prairie types...apparently they were the primary power on the mainline at this time... I collect mostly NP train orders but I also have some from the MILW Coast Division and the UP Idaho Division.

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I also collect early employee timetables that are from the same time frame as the train orders. I can then develop a better picture in my head of the moves outlined on the flimsies. This particular ett is so large, I had scan four separate photos of it and then paste them together to get a single photo of the front cover.

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You too, have some interesting stuff LostMTkid.

I'm happy to share some of what I have as far as images, old trainorders and etc. with others on the net in a forum such as this or in a Yahoo group, but nothing that I've inherited from my dad is for sale or will be given away. Grandkids will inherit his stuff, these items and the memories that they create are all owned by our family at large, and of it's mine exclusively, to either sell nor to dispose of in any way.

Con