The rolling stock of a railroad is anything that moves on its rails. That includes locomotives, freight and passenger cars, track maintenance vehicles and machinery, self-propelled passenger vehicles and—in the case of electric railways—streetcars and interurbans. Because locomotives are the glamour girls of the railroad, and seem to get most of the attention, we will concentrate on everything but locomotives.

And because our interests are largely historical, you will also find here more on rolling stock of the wooden car and early steel car eras, together with trolleys and interurbans. We concentrate primarily on the period from the beginning of railroads in the U.S. (ca. 1830) to the end of the electric car era (ca. 1925).

But enough of the generalities. Here are the specifics.

Railway Car Builders of North America
— an all-inclusive and ever-growing list of every independent builder of railway cars of any kind that ever existed in the United States or Canada; “independent” being defined as anyone that built cars for others (including railroad shops that built cars for anyone other than their own railroad).

Builders of Wooden Railway Cars ... and some of other stuff
 — histories of the men and companies that built railway cars, from the very beginning until well into the twentieth century.

Railway Car-Builder's Dictionary
— an illustrated dictionary of terms having to do with railway cars, largely—but not exclusively—from the wooden car era.

Colorado & Southern Rolling Stock
— a catalog of the passenger cars of the narrow gauge portion of this railroad: a portion that had its beginnings in the years immediately following the Civil War, in the person of the Colorado Central and the Denver, South Park & Pacific railroads, and ran—however haltingly—right up to the brink of the 2nd World War.

A Selective Chronology of the United States
— a table listing selected events in the history of the United States that affected any of the aforementioned subjects in any way; for instance, events in early railroad history, events in early Colorado history and events affecting both the national and the Colorado state economies, and thus the business of building railway cars.

And The Fine Print
— The content of the Rolling Stock website is entirely the responsibility of the webmaster. The Mid-Continent Railway Museum graciously provides web hosting, but has no responsibility for anything contained herein.
— The Rolling Stock website is for educational and modeling purposes only. We sell nothing. If any commercial enterprise is mentioned, it is because we have found it helpful; we receive no benefit of any kind for doing so.
— The  Rolling Stock website is always in transition. If you don’t find what you want, bookmark it and come back later for another try.