Yahoo Groups

• EarlyRail - covers most of the 19th century.
• ER_Kits - An offshoot from EarlyRail, group focused on producing appropriate prototype kits
• Art Griffin's Decals and Kits newsgroup - good discussion on period lettering schemes, car colors, etc

There's also a group for the American Civil War period, and another looking at 1914-1940 era And, of course, just about every railroad has its own historical discussion group. I find the V&T Modelers 1869 (Original V&T) and Colorado Midland groups particularly useful. There are also groups for a lot of railroad industries. Yahoo provides a relevant collection of railroad related groups.

Kit Makers

• SilverCrashCarWorks - specializes in western prototypes of boxcars, reefers and a stock car, particularly Colorado Midland. Resin kits.
• Amesville Car Shops - grew out of the ER Kits project. Resin kits
• Art Griffin Decals - online catalog, now up to 110 pages with 8 cars per page. Art also sells late 19th century reefer and boxcar kits, best place to get information on those kits is his Yahoo Group. Resin kits
• Alkem Scale Models - Most of these cars are 1860s/1870s, but still usable in the 1880s/1890s as older cars. Laser-cut wood kits
• B.T.S - Produces cars suitable for 1860s/1870s, and an unique line of 1880s era prototype cars. Laser-cut wood kits
• Westerfield - Mostly focused on first half of the 20th century, but some kits cover late 1890s. Resin kits.
• Old and Weary Car Shops - NYO&W prototypes, including a late 19th century coal hopper. Resin kits.
• Funaro & Camerlengo - A variety of eras, including a DL&W late 1880s boxcar and some hoppers that can be used for 1890s. Resin kits.

Books (reprints, Google books, historical volumes etc)

New books or reprints

• American Railroad Passenger Car
• American Railroad Freight Cars
• History of American Locomotive Development
• Early American Locomotives

The next set of must-have books are the Car Builders Dictionary. Various editions have been reprinted and you can find them on eBay or used book stores. Some are also available for download from Google Books. There are editions from 1879, 1888 and 1906 (covers both brand new cars and older cars.)

There are also locomotive books in the same general series, again some have been reprinted. Recent Locomotives of 1888 has been reprinted twice, the second time in an 'expanded edition' that includes the ads. There's also an 1883 version that I do not believe has been reprinted. The Locomotive Dictionary of 1906 was reprinted and can be found on eBay and used book dealers. Other books worth considering that are relatively easy to find:

• Iron Horses Collection of line drawings of 19th century locomotives. easy to find on eBay
• Trains & Technology, vol 1 Locomotives
• Trains & Technology, vol 2 Cars
• Trains & Technology, vol 3 Track and Structures
• Trains & Technology, vol 4 Bridges & Tunnels, Signals
• Railway Car Construction This is a reprint that can be ordered directly from the Orange Empire railroad Museum and they often have copies for sale on eBay. This was also reprinted as part of the Train Shed Cyclopedia series.
• The Locomotive Up-to-Date This is a reprint of the 1899 edition. There were other editions of this book published from about 1890 to about 1910.

Newton K. Gregg did a series of reprints under the name of "Train Shed Cyclopedia". There were about 100 of these, mostly on 20th century topics. However, over 5 volumes they reprinted Buildings & Structures of American Railroads from 1893. (I have an original of that volume, and the Gregg reprints are quite nice copies...) It's hard to find all 5 volumes, but worth it.

Most railroad histories cover the 19th century (of course, a history of the Penn Central would be an exception :-). There are specific 19th century volumes for the DL&W (Taber), the Reading (Holton), Central Vermont (Jones).

Al Westerfield provides reprints of the ORER (Official Railway Equipment Register). These were published periodically to provide information to railroads, shippers, car auditors, etc (and usually tossed when the next copy came out). ORER and related CDs

Historical Books (not reprinted)

In the 19th century most states had Railroad Commissioners that issued annual reports with information on railroads charted in their states. These usually include accident reports (scary reading!), reports on new construction, condition of roadbed, and often information on rolling stock. They show up on eBay at usually a reasonable price.

One of the best historical books I have is George Vose' Manual for Railroad Engineers of 1879. Apparently this has been reprinted by Kissinger Press, but I don't know if this reprint includes the pull-out pages of bridge trusses, locomotive cross-sections, etc, that make this book such a treasure.

Another source of great info are the 19th century professional societies, such as Master Car Builders I have some volumes of their Proceedings, and a lot of these are available on Google Books.

Google Books

• 1903 Car Builders Dictionary
• 1906 Car Builders Dictionary
• Railway Shop Up to Date 1907
• Science of Railways
  • Westinghouse Air Brake supplement 1904
  • Telegraph and Telephone Supplement 1904
  • Locomotive Appliances supplement 1904
  • Supervision of Locomotives supplement 1904
  • How Oil is Used on Locomotives supplement 1904
  • Supervision of cars 1904
  • Passenger, Baggage, Express and Mail Service 1904
  • General Fiscal and other Affairs 1904
  • Train Service 1904
  • Fiscal Duties of Agents and Conductors 1904
  • Surplus Materials and Track Accounts supplement 1904
  • Fiscal affairs, Collection of Revenue 1904
  • Economic Theory of Rates 1904
  • Origin and Evolution of Transportation 1904
  • Organization and Forces 1894
  • Railway Organization 1904
  • Financing, Building and Maintaining 1894
  • Financing, Constructing and Maintaining 1903
  • Passenger Business 1894
  • Train Service 1903
  • Fiscal Affairs - Disbursements 1894
  • Fiscal Affairs - Collection of Revenue 1904
  • Freight Business 1894
  • Passenger, Baggage, Express and Mail Service 1903
  • Freight Business and Affairs
  • Baggage, Express and Mail Business 1894
  • Freight Business and Affairs 1904
  • Disbursements of Railways 1903
  • Disbursements of Railways 1904
  • Economy of Rates 1894
  • Economic Theory of Rates 1903
  • General Fiscal and other Affairs 1903
  • Engineer's and Fireman's Manual 1904
  • Economical Purchasing, Care and Use of Materials 1894
• Construction and Maintenance of Railway Roadbed and Track 1097
• Earthwork and Its Cost (steam shovel drawings)
• Westinghouse & New York Air Brake, Car Lighting and Heating, Electric Headlight (Another series similar to the Kirkman books)
• Manual for railroad Engineers and Engineering Students 1881
• Private Freight Cars and American Railways 1908
• Steam Shovels and Steam Shovel Work 1894 (Not '1804' as shown on the title page... :-)

Photo and other Archives

Searchable Photo Archives

• Probably the most comprehensive archive of photos, etc on the web is the Library of Congress, but there's so much there it's hard to find stuff.
• A good site that is a lot easier to use is Shorpy. In particular, search for photos from 'Detroit Publishing Company,' as they took a large collection of cityscapes around the turn of the century.
• The Joseph Smith Collection has a fair number of earlier photos, mostly locomotives, organized by railroad.
• There's a St Charles Car Company catalog available from the St Charles County, MO, Library.
• The Site Railroad Heritage provides a 'search engine' across several collections.
• The California State Railroad Museum has its collection of Pullman company negatives on-line (but searching this collection isn't as easy as it could be.)
• Denver Public Library Western History collection
• Pikes Peak Library special collections (not a lot)
• Arthur Lake Library, Colo. School of Mines
• Western Illinois University
• Iowa Heritage Society
• BYU library
• Knox College
• University of Connecticut Railroad History Archive

Other Photo Sources

Museum collections

Civil Engineering (bridges and structures)

1. They were actually done in color, so you lose some information viewing them in black-and-white.
2. Track plans, in particular, are not guaranteed to be accurate, since Sanborn was interested in structures and not track. Furthermore, Sanborn inspectors might update structure information but not trackplan information, so there's no guarantee that a well-detailed track plan on a given map with a given date is correct for that date.

Last, but most certainly not least from a modeler's perspective, is the treasure trove of the "HAER", the Historic American Engineering Record. This is a division of the Library of Congress that contains photographs, drawings/blueprints and narrative sheets for a huge number of historic buildings across the USA. These vary in quality from a single photograph and caption, to 50 or more photographs, 10 drawings and 20 page descriptions of a single structure.