Furnished Through the Courtesy of Santa Fe Lines

The Santa Fe distributed this booklet in 1945 “to answer the thousands of requests which are received each year from teachers and students throughout the country for material on railroads that will be suitable for classroom use.” The reading level suggests it was written for high school students.


Click image to download a 28.7-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet. Click here to download a 2.3-MB PDF of the wrap-around cover.

The booklet contains many short articles covering a wide range of rail-related topics: history, freight, technology, productivity, sightseeing, and terminology. One interesting set of charts shows that, between 1921 and 1944, freight ton-miles and passenger miles both more than doubled, but the number of locomotives needed to pull those trains declined by a third as newer locomotives were more powerful.


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