FAQ
NOTE: These FAQs are for questions that are generally not covered under other sections of this web site or may not be obvious. In addition to reviewing these questions, you may want to make sure we don’t cover your question under a related general topic listed in the navigation bar.
If you made reservations through our online system, you should have seen a reservation confirmation screen after submitting your order, and, received a confirming email from reservations @ dcnrhs.org within 24 hours of making that reservation. If you mailed you order to us, please allow two – three weeks for us to process the order and send you a confirmation. In either case, if after waiting the appropriate amount of time you still don’t hear from us, then please email us at reservations @ dcnrhs.org or telephone us at 202-627-6978.
Check the specific page for your trip on this website, under Travel with Us then click the “Reserve Now” link. The number os spaces remaining for the trip or event will be listed on the far right hand column of this screen. If a trip or event is sold out, it will be labeled as sold out on the web page, and/or the trip option on “Reserve Now” page will be greyed out and not show any spaces available
Please call 1-800-USA-RAIL or visit Amtrak’s website.
Please see our Union Station page. Please note that we are not the owners of Union Station and these pages are provided as a public service only. All the information we have on Union Station has been posted here.
No. However, if your ancestor worked there after 1936, it is possible that the Railroad Retirement Board (the railroad workers’ equivalent of the Social Security Administration) might have an entry for your ancestor in their genealogy database. Be advised that there are fees charged by this agency.
Railroad Retirement Board
Office of Public Affairs
844 N. Rush St.
Chicago, IL 60611-2092
No. We suggest you monitor or search on eBay. There are also quite a few books on railroadiania.
For questions concerning rail history in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, including railroads, locations, events, equipment, etc: you can send us your question to us via our Contact Us form. For questions not related to local Washington, DC rail history: please review the Library page on the National Railway Historical Society’s website. They have a form that you can use to get research help.
Please see our DOVER HABOR website.
Please see our DOVER HARBOR website.
Please visity the National Railway Historical Society website. That well done site has a list of all NRHS Chapters worldwide.
Please see our Regional Rail page.
Please see our Regional Rail page.
Please contact The Great American Station Foundation.
We do not maintain a reciprocal links page to organizations. We only link to other educational or non-profit efforts, usually railroad or transportation related on pages like our Regional Rail page. We do not link to commercial ventures unless there is a compelling and obvious public service need, such as a link to Amtrak. So, please before you send us a message requesting this, make sure your organization is non-profit and you have a link to our site’s main page on your links page.
No. We DO NOT serve as a pipeline or conduit between our members and outside organizations wishing to sell, market, or buy anything. Our mailing lists and membership roster are not for sale or public use and we do not sell advertisements or provide advertising space in our member publications. If you are an author of a recently published book or video we believe might be of interest and would be willing to present at one of our events, we may be willing to let you present and have a signing or promote your product.
No. Sorry – we don’t have that level of information available and in many cases from forty or more years ago there were tens or hundreds of possible itineraries. The best source of information for this is a monthly publication called The Official Guide of Railway and Steam Navigation Lines. It was published monthly by Rand McNally & Company. Visit your local library and ask for assistance. Look for the edition from or near the month/year you are asking about.
The short answer is all the information we have available we have made available on this website on our REA Baggage Cars page. We suggest you search on-line.
The Pullman Company – The Pullman Company, founded by George M. Pullman, built, operated, and maintained a fleet of first class passenger rail cars by contract on most railroads across the United States. George Pullman is credited with the creation of the first modern, comfortable, sleeping car for railroad travel in 1858. From a small beginning, Mr. Pullman created an empire, which during its peak in the 1930s was responsible for the construction, ownership, and operation of a fleet of over eight-thousand sleeper, parlor, club, and cafe cars. Pullman’s well deserved slogan was “Travel and Sleep in Pullman Safety and Comfort.” The Pullman Company was renowned world-wide for the excellent quality of service passengers received from the Company’s porters and stewards. At that time, a person would purchase their rail ticket for carriage over a railroad, and also purchase a separate Pullman accommodation ticket to upgrade to first class sleeping car space. The range, size, and types of sleeping car accommodations in the 1930s included the most basic — the open section (upper or lower berth enclosed by curtains), to the bedroom (as on DOVER HARBOR), the compartment, and the drawing room. Indeed, the Pullman Company was said to have operated the largest hotel in the world, with upwards of 100,000 beds occupied on a given night. The Pullman Company itself ceased operating sleeping cars on December 31, 1968. Pullman Incorporated, its successor, continued to construct freight and passenger cars until it was sold to Bombardier Corporation of Canada in the 1970s.
There are many resources on the internet about the company.
We own a 1923 Pullman called the DOVER HARBOR.
Garfield was shot at the BALTIMORE AND POTOMAC RR Station (predecessor to the PRR), not at the B&O. The Baltimore and Potomac station was located at the southwest corner of 6th and B (now Constitution Ave) Streets NW, essentially where the National Gallery of Art, West Building now stands. It was a stub end station, with the tracks going south from it across what is now the Mall, to connect via Maryland Avenue and the Long Bridge to the South, and out through Virginia Avenue Tunnel to the North (the current day freight only line via Benning and Landover). This station was in use until the opening of Washington Union Station; its removal from the Mall was one of the major objectives of the Senate Park Commission in 1902.
Yes. We have an entire page devoted to that.