I am the chief curator here at the b endo railroad museum, the baltimore and ohio. This is one of the premier Railroad Museums in the United States. Its also the birthplace of american railroading. Railroading began in 1827. The b and all was in Continuous Operation until 1986 and is a legacy now. Its track is basically formed with csx today. The museum is 40 acres and five buildings. The roundhouse is the jewel. Inside around house are some of the most significant pieces in our collection. We have a Rolling Stock locomotive collection of approximately 180 pieces. The roundhouse is filled with some of the most unique, worldclass, oneofakind locomotives you are ever going to find anywhere. A railroading began in the United States in maryland, the baltimore and ohio was the first common carrier, the first to carry passengers and freight on a regular schedule. The baltimore and ohio was basically formed because of the canal craze in the 1820s. The success of the erie canal lead people in washington to propose the idea of the chesapeake and ohio canal, which would leave baltimore out of the loop. A bunch of businesses were very familiar with what was going on in england at the time, where railroading began about 15 years earlier. He went to england. They explored the idea of building a railroad here. And they decided that it was going to be the best way to go. So the baltimore and ohio was incorporated in 1827. The intent was to take it from baltimore to the ohio river, a journey of 382 miles. O. 5 years to complete. Its the 19th century equivalent of the moonshot, because they theovercome steep grades, allegheny mountains, untried technology, really when you think about everything that is involved with it, it was quite a feat. The look of a by me the locomotive behind me was built and it mimics the tom thumb, the first steam engine else in the United States. A very unique piece designed by peter guber, if you ever designed by peter cooper. What he ended up doing was building something very similar to what was behind us, he the tom thumb, while successful by couldg a steam engine operate, wasnt successful in the manufacturing world. They couldnt turn them out fast enough. What he did do was prove that steam power could be used on the baltimore and ohios track with its sharp curves and steep grades and was a wonderful piece. But when railroading began in the United States, by the 1830s was 23 miles of track in the entire city. In the entire country. In the beginning there were pulling flour, barrels full of flour. That is the kind of produce that was coming from the river valley and that is where a lot of the revenue was coming from. And in Passenger Service eventually picked up, and i would say was an afterthought, but a lot of people thought it was a really cool to travel by rail so thats what they did. Aat you are looking at is 1927 production of a coach, one of the First RailroadPassenger Cars ever designed by the baltimore and ohio. Basically, railroading technology picked up and it was trial by air a trialbyera were kind of process. And they had another business that was designing stagecoaches. So what you see is basically taking a frame and then putting a stagecoach body on top. This worked really well in the early days of railroading, when steam power before steam power was used on a regular basis, horses were actually used. You could get a good 10 mile per hour with a horse pulling on the front. The thing that is unique about this is that when you start putting Steam Technology, when you put the steam engine in front of the car and it starts to pull, and the speeds are faster, you start to get all sorts of different problems and processes. You know, stagecoaches were shake guts andas turtle backs. Imagine getting shaken around on this when you are moving along at a pretty good clip. When you think about rail not exactly being as smooth as it is is a different experience for people. And when you think about how many people you could fit in here, you are probably looking at six on the inside and as many as you could put on the top. And then your seats on those ends, it makes for a crowded experience. ,e always like to joke about stagecoach travel was no different than railroad travel and especially after your experience, especially longdistance, you know your traveling companions personal personally, their political beliefs, and a personal hygiene habits. Comparison to traveling the national roads by stagecoach, on railroad was a much better experience. There were starting to phase them out pretty early on and they would go with what is known as a day coach, and as a standard design, especially when the baltimore and ohio opened a Washington Branch in 1835, they were starting to build coaches specifically for the Washington Branch and they were more traditional in what you would think of as a railroad car, longer wider longer, wider, with seats on the inside for about 50 people. Thats a big difference from what you see here, no windows, basically being exposed to the elements, if youre cold outside to run to be cold inside. And if you are sitting up top, its ok if there is a horse pulling you, but when you start to think about what it was like to actually have a steam engine in front with the sort coming t coming out,he soo and the cinders, you could really ruin your clothing sitting behind this car. In 1927 was the 100th anniversary of railroading in the United States, so the baltimore and ohio decided to celebrate its heritage and they had a big festival which was known as the fair of the iron horse. 1920 seven, in october. It was slated for over a week ended ended up in two weeks and it would draw 1. 2 million visitors outside baltimore. And what they were doing at the time was refurbishing historic equipment, because part of the fair was literally a pageant, a transportation pageant that took place twice a day, where literally you saw the progression of landbased transportation from walking to writing travel to the railroad and then to the railroad in 1927. So that pageant was quite a festival. And pieces like the tom thumb were specifically redesigned for the fair to show people what the early engines and early cars and light. So this particular one, the way that they basically did this was, there were some drawings available. Butoubt it is 100 accurate basically there were that is what they based their measurements off of. To get the style of design. We a lot of those from the 1927 fair. Postcards, there are tries, there are posters, and lots of photographs. It was quite a festival. , and two guns white calf you have seen the back of the old nichols. He came down and they had an indian encampment as well. This was high and for the day. , it was look at it right before the Great Depression. It is literally the heyday of. He baltimore and Ohio Railroad everything from after that is a little on a step down. In the grand scheme of the first 100 years of railroading, the power of the baltimore and ohio is where it is that. It was a great experience. Museum the museums collection consists of more than railroad cars, we have some ligands. The ones behind the are very significant in terms of early transportation and travel and will be widely recognized by many people. Find me is the red stage approach stagecoach of the National State line. If you are traveling in the early 1900s, just like today you are not going by just one way. You might take a rail car to frederick and then from Frederick West you will get on a stage. Especially in the earliest days. The like this were all up and down the national road. I federally funded highway from cumberland the points west. Very important vehicles at the time. You could fit nine people inside that stagecoach. If you read early travel accounts, from baltimore to frederick not that far in terms of mileage, but people would be exhausted. It would take them about half a day to a day. I always wondered why. When you think about rough roads, high speeds, and the nature of those wagons with the way that they were shaking, it makes for a bad experience. If you read them, there are People Holding on to their wives so built smack their head on the top of that stagecoach. The other thing we like to talk about are the three classes of passenger travel. It all relates to what happens when the stagecoach gets stuck. If youre i first goes passenger, when the stagecoach gets stuck in the mud you stay in. Second class to get out and watch, third class to get out and push. A lot of rain makes for a lot of mud. Bad roads, you could literally be stuck up to your boots and horses wont go anywhere. The second vehicle is the conestoga wagon, named for conestoga, pennsylvania. What we like to tell people is this is the 19th century equivalent of a ups or fedex truck. This size like and could carry three or five tons. On both ends up because rough roads could throw the loadout. If you are tipped up you can keep things entered. It would be teams by 4, 6, or eight horses. We are talking draft horses, really big horses. The other thing that is unique about these wagons is that when you look at the sizes, son of these some of these conestoga wagons could have tires up to five or 10 inches wide. When you think of toll roads, some roadstoll exempted wagons that had 10 inch wide tires because what that weight and the width of the tire did is it helped pack down the road. That was pretty important. When you think about places like cumberland, even baltimore, and you think about all the wagon traffic that was in between, you are going to see lots of wagons every time of day. You are also going to be sharing the road with stagecoaches, travelers walking, migrants pulling a cart, even herds of animals. Whether it is takes, goats, cows. You can imagine the noises on the road. When you think about a nice sunny day, that is a good thing. Start to think about Something Like marylands winters, the years had backtoback lizards. We take it for granted that we are able to hear from the weatherman what is coming up and we have a warning, they did not. A trip to western maryland, if you got stuck in the mountains with heavy snow, that road to be closed for weeks. Could be closed for weeks. A much different experience in terms of how we travel today. The conestoga wagon is an original, and the stagecoach is a reproduction that we had made in 2007. Me is onetive behind of my favorite pieces in the collection. The reason for it is because it is unique. It has a little bit of a history in terms of reinvesting and reinvestigated in the kind of history that is associated with one of the pieces. This particular piece was damaged in the roundhouse roof collapse in 2003. President s day weekend in 2003 the maryland area got 28 inches of snow. The building we are in dates from 1884. From a variety of factors, the design of the building, a Structural Design flaw, the second was the amount of snow that came down, the third was the wind direction. Literally blowing from east to west and depositing drifts on the roof of the white house roundhouse up to six or eight feet. The roof has two levels. What precipitated the collapse was, one of the drifts shifted and hit the roof at a point where it was structurally weak and cost half the roof to collapse. Cost wase process, the approximately 30 million to recover from that. Part of that was building damage and part of that was damaged to the collection. The museum was closed for 22 months. Togave us the opportunity really restore the roundhouse to its original appearance as it was constructed and do great things around the museum. From insurance money, some of it came from the state and federal government, and some of it came from private donors. We literally have letters written by small children where they taped quarters, nickels, dimes, and panties to donate to the museum because they had such nnies to and pe donate to the museum because they have such a great time. They were able to discover several things about it. Prior to the roof collapse it was ms. Numbered. Another piece that a different wheel arrangement. We realized that the color scheme that we had on this locomotive was wrong. Int we were able to do investigating what was underneath was we were able to return it to what it looked like when it was first dealt in 1869 which is very first built in 1869 which is very bright, vibrant colors. Even the starburst pattern on the wheel is very beautiful. It is from an age when railroad engines were a work of art. When you look at how this piece was and as it was displayed it was something night and day. By getting in and doing the investigative work and really starting to look at how it was put together, we were able to determine that only was it the wrong number, wrong color, but that also the roof had fallen on it before and that the cap and then replaced. Cab had been replaced. The b o had a huge display hall called the transportation hall. Theye 1930s there not knocked the roof down on top of it. We were able to determine that one half of wall as well as flooring had been replaced. It was much newer than the other side. These engines are very unique in the sense that a very typical bmw, very unique to the b o. These were in wide use. They produced hundreds of these there are only two that exist today. 1869 ande have from there is another that is a little older than this one. When you think about the location of the engine cab, it is right on top of before the. In the summertime you are literally driving a locomotive on top of the boiler, you can probably add another 15 or 20 degrees. Very uncomfortable for the engineer. The firemen was located on the tender behind, so communication between them was not always good. Not a very practical design in that sense. Definitely not comfortable. Very unique in terms of what you are seeing. I am standing in front of the oldest caboose in our collection. 75. Is the c17 it dates to the early 1900s. S in general are the most iconic pieces you will see. Every little boy knows what a caboose is. The heydays are probably the 20s, 30s, and 40s. It would house the crew on longdistance trips and the conductor would do all the paperwork associated with the run in the caboose. In the early days, the conductor could decorate it as he saw fit. You could tell who the conductor was based on how the caboose looked. The other important things inside were the controls for the air brakes, the emergency to dump the air out of there with located in the caboose. It was very functional. The crew would sit up and keep an eye on the train as it rented quarters. The reason for that were known as hot boxes. Hot boxes were on the ends of the wheels, they are these little hub containers. They were packed with cotton and greece. As the train goes down the tracks come the greece would upn off grease would burn and the cottonwood catch fire. That could cause a derailment. As trains were going by each the guys ins up to these cars to keep an eye on things to make sure there werent any issues. As a home away from home and an office, that is what it was all about. Is on display and it is one of two you can get up close to nc. The other that we have on the platform outside his 1927 is a 1927 caboose that kids can get inside. This began being developed in. He 1840s youll start seeing them more until the 1880s or 90s you dont start seeing the more until the 1884 1890s. There are changes in labor laws and how trains are tracked. Did not have to have a crudely over longdistance travel like they used to. You do not have the need to accommodate that crew. The second thing was, they started using satellite technology. If you see a train that goes by today to has a box on the end, that is linked to a satellite and they can tell her that train is. Caboose is entirely gone entirelu gone . There were literally 500 of these things. It is an iconic piece of railroading history. In terms of how they are used and why they created it, they are not around anymore. 409re standing in the combine car. This is a very unique car. It allows us to talk about a period in history a lot of people dont want to bring up. That is for separate but equal, which invariably was always unequal. This particular one was used by railway. O c o you had one for whites and smokers and in the middle section was for africanamericans. It is not equal. On the other side there is actually a baggage area, since as a combine car so this is a combine car. We always talk about this in terms of the baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which literally was forced by state law in terms of how the accommodations were made for africanamericans and white passenger. The b o and in the state of maryland basically mandated that there has to be separate cars available for africanamericans and whites. That law was in place up through the 1930s. , if they like the b o had trains traveling through the state exclusively were forced to have separate accommodations. It is not clear just how widely enforced that rule was, because it was up to the conductor and train crew to police that action. There are instances where those conductors chose not to follow that. Andlso know from Litigation Court cases that there are definitely instances where it was an issue and usually those cases came about where you had africanamericans who were outofstate and did not understand that there were these mandates in place that came from the north and work used to that. Some were literally thrown on the car off the car. That is for you get the legal action. That is where you get the legal action. The b o had separate accommodations for africanamericans. The local newspaper, the afro, when they found out about this they started a campaign advocating for their removal. It went up to the president of the b o railroad. It is really, the water is really muddy. It is not 100 clearcut what happened. We believe a lot of them dont exist anymore because it is something people did not want to talk about or it was something people were used to seeing. Standing here in our north Passenger Car shop, it houses some of the significant pieces in our collection from the early 1900s. The particular one im standing in front of is the first commercial this is probably the most significant piece in our selection. It is unique, because we Start Talking about if it hadnt been for the Great Depression and world war ii, this may have started earlier in railroading. This was produced by general electric, ingersollrand, and the American Electric company. It worked in a guard outside new york for its entire life. What we use it to talk about is how dieselization would change the railroading industry. Being ald end up vehicle for locomotion for railroading in the 1920s. That is a significant piece. When you look at this, not much to look at. Ind of boxy and ugly a lot of the guys who operated steam engines were not happy when the thing started to come around. When you start to factor in that railroads for using diesel power to cut manpower, a lot of people were fighting it. This was the future. Sea and in front of the 490. C o this is one of the last built steam engines. It was rebuilt in 1946 from an engine built in the 1920s. It was designed at a time where Steam Technology was going out. It is surprising that this one was built in the first place because Diesel Technology was starting to transition and take up steam pick up steam. The costs associated with a steam engine were high. What is unique about this is when you look at how much money was put into it, it was almost a lost before it came out. Before it came out. Around the turnofthecentury 90 8 of intercity travel was done by trains. That is pretty significant 98 of intercity travel was done by trains. That is a pretty significant number. Everywhere and that was an efficient way to get around. Automobile e you see that vibrant lifestyle being able to get out and go wherever you want to use an automobile and people start to pull away from trans. With trains you are on a set schedule. And price comes down automobiles, you see more people being able to afford it. With the increased use of automobiles and the advocating from detroit and the eisenhower interstate system, you see an improvement in the road system overall. It literally becomes easier to move around. What suffers is railroad passenger travel. In a time where it becomes more in efficient and slower to go by rail, railroads remain forced by interstate Commerce Commission took maintain Passenger Service and they were losing money hand over fist. Eventually they would start to downsize their Passenger Service and do away with it. In the 1970s you see the , i way for amtrak railroads to get rid of a service that was bleeding and cant afford to operate. They are focusing on what is their main mode of making money, it has always been freight. After september 11, you are seeing a resurgence in rail transportation. The northeast corridor door is one of the most successful lines for amtrak in terms of revenuegenerating and the number of people to travel on that route. When i went to kansas city i actually took the train. I dont mind making that trip. It is a little longer than going by plane, but for me it is still something fun to travel by rail. There you have the american railroad, created by the individual efforts, pulled it invested savings of the american people. With justifiable pride in a competence of the past, accomplishments of the past, american railroads faced toward the future. The railroad will continue to serve the nation and its people along the proven pathways of continued progress and ever greater prosperity. You can view this and other american artifacts at our website www. Cspan. Org history look for the american artifacts tab or use the search feature. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3. Tonight at 8 00 on lectures and history, we visit with Iowa State University as professor pamela teaches a class on food during the Great Depression. In a a lot of families there was selective starvation of adults. Meaning adults would choose not to eat in favor of letting their children eat. There were families that stayed in bed all day and reduced their meals to two a day so that everybody would conserve as much energy as possible and not get is hungry. They also relied on the kindness of friends and strangers. , aat 10 00 on real america a. D from 1967 titled 1999 a look ahead at family life in the 21st century. Withlitsecond lunches disposable dishes, all part of the instant society of tomorrow. Sunday at 4 30 p. M. Eastern, historian jane hope talks about runaway slaves and the consequences of fugitive slave laws. One of the most significant and least appreciated things of preventing fugitive slaves from being returned was among the most peaceful and least violent. The deliberate refusal to enforce the law and many northern communities, particularly black communities. Tournday at 8 00, we will the National World war i museum and memorial in kansas city. I think it is an extraordinary story of grassroots support and crowd source funding to pay for what to be ont extraordinarily dramatic memorial. American history tv, this weekend, only on cspan3. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend, featuring museum tors, archival films, and the grams on the presidency. Heres is a clip from a recent program. It isnt the size of a brain that counts, it is what it can do. Equal rage men are if you take their skins off there is no way to tell them apart. ,heir heart, liver, lungs everything is the same. Everything is the same, heart, liver, lungs, blood. Not blood, blood is different. There are four different types of blood. And o. B, the patient in room 216 needs a transfusion. I will give it to him, i am his brother. Hes dead. Dad, but he wouldnt be if we had been more scientific. Brother or no brother, what he needs is taipei type a. The four blood types up. Here s types up appear in all races. Wait a minute. I have a question. This . Me we live like and it was not always that way. When the socalled pure whites of Northern Europe the darker skinned missed people of the near east and africa the great civilization of northern china had begun to develop. All people contributed to civilization. Reaching high levels at different times. Each learning from the experience of the other. Believe in a supreme being in the home and a family. A life the person is depends on the surroundings in which they grow up. Person isilized a depends on the surroundings in which they grow up. This comes from Something Like cultural experience or environment. You can watch this and other American History programs on our website, where all of our videos archive. history. Www. Cspan. Org historian Gary Gallagher talks with allen guelzo about his previous work on president Abraham Lincoln and his current project on confederate general robert e lee. Mr. Guelzo highlights president lincolns intellect and the importance of religion in everyday life during the civil war area. The university of virginias center for Civil War History hosted this conversation