As “railfans” and modelers, we often tend to focus on the equipment, and occasionally, the infrastructure of the railroads that we study. One of the things that draws me to the photography of Jack Delano is the way he often included the human element of the railroad. You’ve likely noticed that many (most?) of the images that I’ve posted over these past months contain a railroader doing his or her job.

Today I thought I’d focus entirely on those folks. Mr. Delano took the time to take many portraits of the people he saw while documenting the various railroads. Below are a half dozen images representing just a tiny facet of the thousands of railroad employees. I wish it were practical to feature someone from all the various disciplines required to make a railroad function, but that would literally take a volume to do.

This post is dedicated to the thousands of workers who contributed to keeping those trains rolling.

-Jack