The Cincinnati Railroad Club maintains a library of over 1,600+ items in our clubroom, located on the 3rd floor of the Cincinnati Museum Center at 1301 Western Avenue.
- Download to see our current list of our holdings.
- Download and view the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society bulletin
Our 3rd-floor club room books are arranged by the four remaining Class 1 railroads and their various predecessors. For example, the Southern Railroad books are filed on the Norfolk Southern bookcase, the L&N is filed within the CSX bookcase. Because the Pennsylvania, New York Central, Penn Central, and their predecessor rail lines were split between the CSX and Norfolk Southern, they were afforded their own bookcase. Each shelf is labeled with the railroad name or topic to ease your quest to find books about a favorite road. Our 3rd floor holdings include books about locomotive and car builders, interurbans, trolleys, Amtrak, and narrow-gauge railroads.
Unfortunately, due to the rarity and cost of tracking and replacing this vast collection, our books cannot be circulated outside our clubroom. Be assured, the clubroom is equipped with many comfortable chairs for you to settle in for a good read and a refrigerator for your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and a microwave to rewarm snack items. Upon request, we can also play a DVD of your choice from the club collection on our big-screen TV. Our library is normally open to members from 5 PM on meeting nights until 7:15 PM as shown on our club calendar, or upon request given the availability of our volunteer staff.
Our library is organized in the following order:
Bookcase #1: Reference materials, Locomotive and Car builder’s books and diagrams, and Pullman information.
Bookcase #2: Cincinnati, Ohio, Tri-State area railroads, Narrow-Gauge, Interurban, Trolley, Biography, and Railway & Locomotive Historical Society bound volumes (index is located as a PDF document on our webpage)
Bookcase #3: New York Central, Pennsylvania, Penn Central, Conrail, and lines acquired by those roads, Train Terminal books.
Bookcase #4: CSX and all predecessor roads including but not limited to Baltimore & Ohio, Chesapeake & Ohio, Louisville & Nashville, Seaboard, Atlantic Coast, etc.
Bookcase #5: Orphan railroads (such as Rock Island), Norfolk Southern, and all predecessor roads including but not limited to the Norfolk & Western, the Southern Railroad. Additionally, Western and Canadian roads are included here.
