Western Crossroads Railway Museum Archives
We are in the process of digitizing our document and photo archives. They can be found at these sites:
WCRM Photographs
WCRM Maps, books and document bundles
Collection Catalogs
The following links open PDF catalogs of our museum collections. Document collections are in the process of being digitized and will eventually be hosted on our Archive.org account.
Michael Burdett Union Pacific Dining Car China Collection
John West Utah Railway Map Collection
John E. Timberlake Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Document Collection
Henry Lee Putnam Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Machinist’s Collection
Research Help
Need help with a research project? Feel free to contact us! Sometimes we may not have exactly what you are looking for, and if so, below are some other places that might.
Please note that the WCRM is not affiliated with the following sites and organizations and provides this information as a public service.
Want information about modern railroads in Utah?
UC Rail
Want detailed histories of historic railroads, locomotive rosters, and maps?
Are you looking for information about a relative?
The Western Crossroads Railway Museum’s archival collection includes documents with names that may be useful for family history work. We prioritize the digitization of these documents so that they are available online for free. However, they are not indexed. If you have ancestors that worked for a railroad they might be found here.
Uinta Railway Sheep Shearing Lists – includes names of ranchers and shepherds whose herds were shorn and shipped on the Uintah Railway in the Uintah Basin, western Utah and eastern Colorado in 1935 and 1936.
Carbon County Railway Daily Performance Reports 1944 – A record of the section men who maintained the Carbon County Railway in Carbon County, Utah in 1944, listing names and the work they accomplished each day.
Utah Railway Black Book Payment Register – a handwritten ledger of payments made by the Utah Railway in 1912 through 1914 including who the payments were made to. Records many individuals from Utah and Carbon Counties.
Kennecott Copper Bingham Canyon Mine Rail Operations Seniority Lists – Fragments of employee records of the Kennecott Copper Bingham Canyon Mine’s railroad operations in January 1982.
We are hosting a document of names compiled from tertiary sources outside of our collections at the Utah Railroad Employment Record Project. If you have information about an ancestor who is not yet on this list, please contact us. In addition, if you know the company that your relative worked for, you can try contacting the following organizations:
- Rio Grande Western, Denver & Rio Grande, or Denver & Rio Grande Western: Company records are split between the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, and the Colorado Railroad Museum, all in the Denver metropolitan area. The Utah State Historical Society has limited records obtained from the Salt Lake City Rio Grande Depot.
- Union Pacific: The Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Cheyenne, Wyoming has access to Union Pacific company records. The Utah State Railroad Museum Library at the Union Station in Ogden, Utah has limited employment records saved from the Union Pacific shops in Ogden.
- Southern Pacific: the SP company records are housed at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
- Utah Idaho Central: Utah State University has limited records obtained from U-I-C stations between Brigham City and Preston.
- Utah Southern, Utah Central, Utah & Northern: The LDS Church History Library has early records regarding these “Mormon Railroads.” All three became part of the Union Pacific system, and further records can be found at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Cheyenne.