About

About Columbusrailroads.com

        I have been interested in railroads of all kinds since the mid-1950s. I like horsecars, streetcars, interurbans, and standard and narrow gauge steam railroads (with steam locomotives). I have little interest in diesel locomotives beyond the first generation. Second-generation diesel locomotives, like automobiles after 1956, don't have the character or charm of the early days. Models are nice but, with great regret, not my skill. 
        For anyone with this general interest, Columbus, Ohio, my hometown, has or had it all. Horsecar systems that started in the middle of the Civil War, streetcar companies that merged and emerged, evolving until one unified system remained, interurban lines that radiated in all directions from Columbus, many steam roads, some starting as early as the 1850s that eventually boiled down, eighty years later, to five big class I railroads. 
        The growth of Columbus was made possible by the railroads that served her. Much of the late 19th and early 20th Century industry in Columbus supported railroads - Timken Roller Bearing, Buckeye Steel Castings, Jeffrey Manufacturing, Ralston Steel Car Company, and the Pennsylvania Railroad shops, to name a few. Railroad-related employment in Columbus was huge in the late 19th - early 20th Century, as was the dirt and pollution that went along with that employment. None of that, the good or the bad, is evident in 21st Century Columbus.
        Columbusrailroads.com will share some of that history, what I and others have collected in pictures and stories about that period from 1850-1960 and beyond. I hope the reader will respond when I have it wrong and add to the narration. Many long-time railroad fans have detailed knowledge of how things were in the old days. While there is some good published material about railroading in and around Columbus, there are also large gaps in the story. I will attempt to fill in a few of those gaps before they are lost.
        You will find this website a bit eclectic, and it will jump around depending on what interests me this month. New material is usually added around the first of the month. You may email me with your comments and suggestions at - columbusrr@att.net.
        Special thanks go to my son George Campbell for designing and programming columbusrailroads.com. Preparing the custom-designed framework that supports the content the reader sees on this website is no small task. I couldn't do this without George's helping hand.

Alex Campbell