Joseph R. Snopek Railroad Collection

The collection consists of timetables, publications, maps, train accident reports, photographic prints and negatives, postcards and ephemera of railroads of New England, particularly the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, better known as the New Haven Railroad, as well as its successor railroads of Penn Central, Conrail and Amtrak.

Series I: Timetables, publications, maps, and ephemera, consists of timetables (employee and public), books, publications, maps, fliers, ephemera, and accident reports of railroads in New England and the northeast United States, particularly those that were functioning in the period between the 1930s and the 1990s. Railroads represented include Amtrak, the Boston & Albany Railroad, the Boston & Maine Railroad, New York Central Railroad, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, and Penn Central. Also included is literature produced by railfan groups of the northeast United States, including the New Haven Railroad Historical and Technical Association and the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts. Of special interest are locomotive operating and instruction manuals and Interstate Commerce Commission accident reports.

These papers were collected by Mr. Snopek for his personal interest and as research materials in preparation for writing the book Diesels to Park Avenue: The FL-9 Story.

Series II: Photographs, consists of images collected and taken by Mr. Snopek throughout his lifetime, of locomotives, railroad stations and other railroad-related scenes, mostly of railroads in the northeast United States with a few from Canada and the western United States.

Prior to the donation of the collection to Archives & Special Collections the materials, particularly the photographs, were organized and meticulously listed by Robert A. LaMay, Mr. Snopek's co-author on the book Diesels to Park Avenue: The FL-9 Story. The lists Mr. LaMay created are available in each box of photographic prints as aids for access.