Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts BO Railroad Museum 20180113

Also the birthplace of american railroading. Railroading began in 1827. The b o 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 1884 roundhouse is the jewel. Inside the round house are some of the most significant pieces in our collection. We have a Rolling Stock locomotive collection of approximately 180 pieces. Bays inside the roundhouse is filled with some of the most unique, worldclass, oneofakind locomotives you are ever going to find anywhere. 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 led people in washington to propose the idea of the chesapeake and ohio canal, which would leave baltimore out of the loop. Businessmen were very familiar with what was going on in england at the time, where railroading began about 15 years earlier. So they 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. It took the b o 25 years to complete at a cost of approximately 14 million. Historian called it the 19th century equivalent of the moonshot, and he wasnt kidding, when you think about what they had to overcome. Steep grades, the allegheny mountains, untried technology, really when you think about everything that is involved with it, it was quite a feat. The locomotive behind me was built in 1927, and it mimics the tom thumb, the first steam engine in the United States. A very unique piece designed by peter cooper. If you have heard of the cooper union, that is his claim to fame. He was a manufacturer and entrepreneur. What he ended up doing was building something very similar to what was behind us, the tom thumb. While successful by proving a steam engine could operate, it wasnt successful in the manufacturing world. They couldnt turn them out fast enough. Ended up failing on his contract, but 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 there was 23 miles of track in the entire country. 23 from baltimore to ellicott city, 13 miles from here. In the beginning there were 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. Eventually, Passenger Service picked up, i would not say as an afterthought, but almost as a sideshow. A lot of people thought it was a really cool way to travel by rail so thats what they did. What you are looking at is a 1927 reproduction of an emory coach. Mily one of the First Railroad Passenger Cars ever designed by the baltimore and ohio. Basically, railroading technology picked up and it was a trialbyerror kind of process. This is a great example. The man who built this had another business, 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. 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 actually known as shake guts and turtle backs. That all depends on what happened at high speeds on dirt roads. 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 today, this 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. We 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 beliefs, their political beliefs, and personal hygiene habits. Or lack thereof. Traveling by todays standards is not exactly great. Traveling, in comparison to traveling the national roads by stagecoach, on railroad was a much better experience. Cars like this were probably used by the railroad for about the first 10 years. 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 that were more traditional in what you would think of as a railroad car, 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 odds are you are going to be cold inside. Another byproduct, 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 soot coming out, and the cinders, you could really ruin your clothing sitting behind this car. So it became pretty necessary to make modifications and update how people would travel pretty quickly. 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. Took place in october. It was slated for over a week ended up being 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 wagon 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 were like. So this particular one, the way that they basically did this was, there were some drawings available. We doubt it is 100 accurate but basically there were old lithographs, older drawings, and that they could compare to, and that is roughly what they based their measurements off of the get the style of design. We have lots of photos of the 1927 fair. Lots of people visited. There are postcards, posters. Lots of people visited. Lots and lots of photographs. If you have ever seen the back of the old nickel, they had an indian encampment as well. This was highend for the day. It is right before the Great Depression. It is literally the heyday of the baltimore and Ohio Railroad. They have just reached the zenith and everything after that was a step down. In the grand scheme of the first 100 years of railroading, it was a great experience. The museums collection consists of more than just railroad cars. We have weapons in the collection. We have wagons in the collection. The two behind me are significant and would be widely recognized by many people. Directly behind me is the stagecoach from the National Stagecoach line. Very important. If you were traveling in the intermodal travel, just like today, you would not take just one mode of transportation. If you are heading west, you would probably take a stagecoach. Vehicles like this were all up and down the national road, the federally funded highway, from cumberland two points west. Very important to vehicles. You could fit nine people inside the stagecoach. If you read early travel accounts, from baltimore further was not that far in terms of mileage, but people would be exhausted. It would take half a day to a day. I would wonder why. But when you think about the rough road and high speeds and the way the wagons were shaking, it makes for a bad experience. People were holding on for their lives so they would not hit their head on the top of this stagecoach. There were three classes of passenger travel. It all relates to what happens if the stagecoach gets stuck. Firstclass stays inside. Second class gets out to watch. Third class gets out to help push. That was necessary. A lot of rain makes for a lot of mud, bad roads, you could get stuck up to the hub and could not go anywhere in that kind of condition. The wagon behind me is named for conestoga, pennsylvania. This is the 19th century equivalent of a ups or fedex truck that you will see on the roads today. This size wagon could carry 35 tons. Rough roads would sometimes throw the load out. Ends. Tipped up on both it would be pulled by 4, 6, or eight horses. We are talking draft horses. Really big horses. The other thing that is unique, the size of these, some of these wagons could be much larger. Tires could be 510 inches wide. Thats what they wanted. When you think toll roads in general, some of the roads exempted wagons who had 10 or more wide tires because that pack down the road, and that was important at the time. If you think about places like cumberland or baltimore and all the wagon traffic, you would see lots of wagons, but you would see stagecoaches, travelers walking, migrants pulling a cart, herds of animals, pigs, goats, cows. You can imagine the noises if you are headed west. When you think about a nice, sunny day. Dusty traveling, that is a good thing. But think about marylands winters. Think about the backtoback blizzards. We take it for granted that we can hear from the weatherman whats coming up. We had warning. They didnt. If you got stuck in the mountains with heavy snow, that road could be closed for weeks. A much different experience from how we travel today. The conestoga wagon is an original from 1813. And the stagecoach is a reproduction we had made in 2007. The locomotive behind me, the 305, is one of my favorite pieces in the collection. It is unique, and it has history in terms of reinvesting and investigating the kind of history associated. This was part of the round house roof collapse of 2003. President s day weekend in 2003, the maryland area and baltimore in particular got approximately 28 inches of snow. The building we are in date from 1884. A variety of factors. There was a Structural Design flaw. The amount of snow that came down, 28 inches came down. The third factor was the wind direction, blowing east to west. It deposited snow on the roof up to 68 feet. The way our group is designed, it is 2 levels. What precipitated the collapse was, the trigger mechanism was that one of the drifts shifted, came down and hit the roof at a point where it was structurally weak, and caused the whole roof to collapse. The cost was approximately 30 million to recover from that. Part of that was building damage. Part of it was damage to the collection. The museum was closed for 22 months. But it gave us the opportunity to restore the roundhouse to the appearance of when it was constructed. Really do some great things around the museum to make it a better place and enhance the visitor experience. Some of it came from insurance money. Some of it came from the state and federal government. Some of it came from private donors. We have letters from small children where they take orders, taped nickels, dimes, pennies to donate to the museum because they had such a great feeling about to the museum, they wanted about the museum, they wanted to see it come back. During that time we were able to really look at how it had come together. One thing we discovered was that it was misnumbered. It represented another piece that had a different wheel arrangement that wasnt what it was supposed to be. The second thing is, we realize the color scheme we had on the locomotive was wrong. What we were able to do and investigate was we were able to return it to what it looked like when it was first built in 1869. Vibrant colors used by the the by the baltimore and ohio. A pattern that was very unique and beautiful. It gets back to when railroad engines were works of art. You look at how this was and as it was displayed it was night and day. Doing the investigative work and really starting to look at how it was put together, we were able to determine that not only was it the wrong number, wrong color, but also the roof had fallen before and had to be replaced. That took place in 1930. After the affair of the iron horse, the b o had a huge transportation hall. A hurricane came and knocked the roof down. As part of the restoration process, we were able to determine that half the wall as well as the flooring had been replaced, it was much newer than the other side. These engines are very unique to the b o. During the civil war, these were in wide use. They produced hundreds, and only 2 exist today. One from 1869 and one in st. Louis that is a little older than this. A practical piece to begin with, but when you think about the location of the engine cab, right on top of the boiler, you can imagine in the summertime when it is very hot, you are literally driving that locomotive and right on top of the boiler, its very uncomfortable for the engineer. The fire room was on the tender behind, so communication between the two wasnt always good as well. Not a practical design in that sense, not comfortable, but unique and very b o. I am standing in front of the oldest caboose in the museums collection. That is the c 1775 behind me. It dates to the early 1900s. Cabooses in general are the most iconic pieces you will see. Every little boy knows what a red caboose is. It was an important part of any train. Its basically the conductors office. It would house the crew on longdistance trips. The conductor would do all the paperwork associated with the run in the caboose. In the early days, a conductor was assigned a caboose and could decorate it as he saw fit. You could tell who the conductor was. It also held the emergency brakes. The cupola itself was functional. What would happen is, the crew would sit up and keep an eye on things as the train went around corners. The reason for that was hot boxes. On the ends of the wheels were little hub containers packed with cotton and grease. As the train goes down the track, the grease would burn off eventually if it was not maintained property, and it could catch fire. If the hotbox caught fire, that could cause an issue. It was up to the guys in these e on thingsp an ey and make sure there were not any issues. As a home away from home and in office, that is what it was all about. Today, you can get up close and see. The other on the platform outside is the 1927 caboose that kids can get up inside and see what it is like to be a railroader. Cabooses began being developed in the 1840s. You dont see them more until the 1890s. That is when you really start to see them. The heyday is gone. There were changes in labor laws and changes in how trains are tracked that did away with the caboose in general. You did not have to have the crew going over Long Distance travel as much as they used to. You did not have the need to accommodate the crew. The second thing was, they started using satellite technology. If you see a train today with a box flashing red, it is linked to a satellite that can tell where the train is. Boosesboose are ca gone completely . No. Platforms butme not that many. When you think about the styles of caboose, there were 506. You will still see them in a lot of small Railroad Depots and that sort of thing because it is an iconic piece of railroading history and everybody wanted a caboose. In terms of how they were used or why they were created in the first place, they are not around anymore. We are standing in the 409 combine car. This is a unique car for us because it is a jim crow car. It allows us to talk about a period in history that a lot of people dont want to bring up. It was called separate but equal, but it was very unequal because of the way it was carried out. This was used by the cnl railway. Carried out. There were partitions so that one side was whites and smokers and the middle section was for africanamericans. Again, not equal. On the other side is a baggage area. This is a combine car, combination baggage as well as passenger accommodation. We always talk about this in terms of the baltimore and Ohio Railroad which was forced by state law, in terms of how the accommodations were made for africanamericans and white passengers. Maryland and the b o mandated that there had to be separate cars available for africanamericans and whites. That law was in place up through the 1930s, and basically, railroads like the b o, if they traveled within the state exclusively, were forced to have separate accommodations. Its not clear how widely enforced that was because it was up to the conductor and train crew to police that. There are instances where conductors chose not to follow that. But we also know from court cases where there were incidences where that was an issue. Africanamericans from outofstate did not understand these mandates if they came from the north and were not used to it. Some were literally thrown off the car and that lead to legal action. The bno did not enforce a as strictly as it could have, but the b o was separate accommodations. Even in the passenger station. Signs puttion, had up, as the local newspaper found out about this, they advocated for their removal. It went up to the president , dan willard, he pulled the sign. The water is money. Muddy. It is not 100 clear cut would happen. We believe a lot of the evidence doesnt exist anymore because people didnt want to talk about it or it was something they were so use to seeing that it wasnt brought up in conversation. Standing in our north Passenger Car shop. It houses some of the more significant pieces of the collection from the early 1900s. The one i am standing in front of is the cmj 1000, the first commercial diesel produced. This is one of the most significant pieces in our collection. When we Start Talking about diesel in general, people dont realize that occurred with this engine in 1925. If it hadnt been for the Great Depression and world war ii, and have started earlier in railroading. This particular piece was the first one produced commercially, by general electric, Ingersoll Rand and the american locomotive company. They worked together to produce this piece. It worked in new york for its entire life. We use it to talk about how diesel really changed everything. Its unique because of the cost to operate, people, and the amount of energy that it produced. Eventually this would be the main means of locomotion for railroading today and it all started in the early 1920s. That is a significant piece. When you look at this, its not much to look at. Its called the box cab for obvious reasons. Its kind of ugly. A lot of guys who operated steam engines were not happy when these came around. When you factor in the diesel power was used to cut manpower, a lot of people were fighting at every step of the way. But this was the future and its here in the b o railroad museum. Standing in front of the cno 490. This is pretty. Art deco. 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 when Steam Technology was really going out of vogue. It was a surprise that it was built in the first place because Diesel Technology was really starting to transition and pick up speed. The costs associated with operating a steam engine were high. Whats unique about this is when you look at how much money was put into its design, development, and rebuild, it was almost a loss before it came out. But its an excellent opportunity to talk about how the transition occurred into Diesel Technology. Around the turnofthecentury, 98 of intercity travel was done by train. That is significant. Going to baltimore, philadelphia, new york, you were not going to do it by car because the roads were awful. You were not going to do it by boat because rails were everywhere and that was a fast and efficient way to get around. When the transition starts to occur, the rise of the automobile. How detroit markets it. You see the vibrant lifestyle, being able to get out and go wherever you want to in an automobile. That starts to pull away from the train mystique. With a train, you are on a set schedule. As availability and price comes down in automobiles, you see more people purchasing them. At the same time, with the increase of the automobile, advocating from detroit and eventually, with the eisenhower interstate system, you see an improvement in the road system overall. It becomes easier to move around. What suffers is railroad passenger travel. When it becomes more inefficient and slower to go by rail, railroads are being forced by the interstate commerce system to maintain Passenger Service. They were losing money hand over fist. Eventually, they would downsize Passenger Service, and then do away with it, until the 1970s, when they formed amtrak. The creation of amtrak was a way for railroads to get rid of a service that was leading in them. Them,eding focusing on freight. After 9 11, you see a resurgence in rail transportation. The northeast corridor in particular is one of the most successful lines for amtrak. In terms of the number of people that travel the route. When i went to kansas city, i took the train. I dont mind making that trip. Its faster to go by plane, but for me, its still something to go by rail. There you have the american railroad. Created by the american people. With justifiable pride, the american railroads face forward to the future with defining faith in the fundamentals of democracy. The railroads will continue to serve the nation and its people along the proven pathway to progress and ever greater prosperity. Announcer you can view this and other american artifacts on our website, cspan. Org americanhistory. Look for the american artifacts cap at the top of the page or use the Search Engine to explore topics. Announcer cspan, where history unfolds daily. Created as aan was Public Service by americas television companies. It is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Next on American History tv, historians discuss the social and political impact of several events leading up to the civil war. Including the fugitive slave act and abolitionist john browns raid on a federal armory at harpers fairy. Erry. This was part of Yale Universitys Gilder Lehrman center for the study of slavery, resistance, and abolition. This was the most fun to , deciding which events, which problems, which moments of the precivil war era would we represent. Said, thisanna and is one you should moderate. She said,