Railroads In The 1920s: Transportation Act, Shopmen, Super Power & the Auto

Last revised: September 8, 2026

The 1920s opened with the government handing the railroads back and closed with the stock market handing the country a depression. In between, the map stopped growing, the automobile took the local passenger, shopmen walked out, and steam and diesel both found their next shapes. John Stover’s first-track series put the all-time peak at 254,037 miles in 1916. By 1930 the same series, as printed on the 1930s leaf, stood at 249,052. Don DeNevi noted only about 6,000 miles built from 1920 through 1929. The country was still laying some rail. Net, it was taking more up.

Federal control ended at 12:01 a.m. on March 1, 1920. The statute the roads came home to is the Transportation Act of February 28, 1920 (Esch–Cummins), written as the 1910s closer on Railroads In The 1910s. How the United States Railroad Administration was staffed, paid, and standardized is on the USRA page. Wartime traffic is on Railroads During World War I. Streamliners, the FT, and the bankruptcies of the 1930s belong to the 1930s. What follows here is 1920 through 1930.

B&O 4-6-2 5208 with the Washington Express at Folsom, PA in 1927

Baltimore & Ohio 4-6-2 #5208 (Class P-5a) was photogaphered here by John Powell at Folsom, Pennsylvanie at 10:32 am with westbound train 505, the "Washington Express", on March 14, 1927. Library of Congress collection.

On this page: At a glance · Living under the Transportation Act · Mileage after the peak · Shopmen, 1922 · The automobile and the passenger · Interurbans · Diesel switchers that stayed · Super Power steam · Named trains · October 1929

At a glance

Item	Detail
Peak miles (already past)	254,037 first track in 1916 (Stover / ICC)
Miles, 1930	249,052 (Stover series as used on the 1930s leaf)
New construction, 1920–29	About 6,000 miles (DeNevi). Net miles fell
Return from USRA	March 1, 1920. Statute: Transportation Act, February 28, 1920
Railroad Labor Board	Created by the 1920 act. Replaced by the Railway Labor Act, May 20, 1926
Shopmen’s strike	July 1, 1922. About 400,000 shop-craft employees. Wilkerson / Daugherty injunction September 1, 1922
Passengers	About 1 billion in 1916; about 700 million by 1930. In 1929, 34 billion passenger-miles by rail against 175 billion by automobile
Motor vehicles	About 3 million registered in 1916; about 23 million by 1929. Model T about $260 by 1925
Interurban miles	15,337 (1920); 10,422 (1930). Peak had been 15,580 in 1916
First commercial diesel switchers	Alco–GE–Ingersoll-Rand boxcabs, 1925 (Central Railroad of New Jersey and others). Jay Street Connecting No. 4 (1918) had been returned
Super Power / new Whyte types	Lima A-1 2-8-4 Berkshire, 1925. Northern Pacific Class A 4-8-4, December 1926. NYC J-1a Hudson No. 5200, February 14, 1927
Cascade Tunnel	Great Northern’s new bore opened January 12, 1929
Crash	October 1929. Depression receiverships are the next decade

Mileage is the Stover / ICC first-track series. Construction and net miles are different figures. Information compiled September 8, 2026.

Living under the Transportation Act

The Esch–Cummins Act is a 1910s statute. The 1920s had to live with it. The ICC gained a fair-return idea (commonly 5½ percent, with recapture of half the excess above 6 percent), power to approve or block mergers, and a showing before a line could be abandoned. Duplicate branches from the 1880s building boom now had a federal lock. The act also created the Railroad Labor Board, a nine-member panel to settle wages. Coolidge signed the Railway Labor Act on May 20, 1926, and the Labor Board went away. That 1926 statute is this decade’s labor closer. The 1920 consolidation mandate is this decade’s unfinished business.

Congress had told the Commission to group the railroads into a limited number of systems. Plans were drawn. The Van Sweringens came closest in the East, assembling Nickel Plate, Clover Leaf, and a path toward Chesapeake & Ohio and Pere Marquette. The ICC never forced a national map. October 1929 ended the argument for a generation. Company encyclopedias stay on the company leaves. The 1920s fact is that the great consolidation did not happen.

Private management came home in March 1920 to worn rail, deferred shop work, and a wartime wage bill. The roads spent the early 1920s putting the plant back together. When the second war came they were determined not to be taken again. That determination is a 1920s inheritance. The war itself is Railroads In World War II.

Mileage after the peak

The network was as large as it would ever be in 1916. The 1920s did not add a new transcontinental. They added about 6,000 miles of new construction and lost more than that to abandonment, once the ICC would allow a showing. Kansas and Iowa still sat near their state peaks. The long run from 1916 to the present is decline. This decade is where net decline became the normal condition, not a wartime pause.

Chicago Union Station opened in 1925. Great Northern drove a new Cascade Tunnel and opened it on January 12, 1929, eight miles under the mountain, electric through the bore. Milwaukee’s Pacific Coast electrification reached completion in this decade; the Rocky Mountain electrification was already a 1910s fact. Pennsylvania kept building electric territory in the East. The full New York–Washington catenary is 1935, the next decade. Stations and tunnels have their own leaves. The 1920s point is that the big civil works were now reconstruction and bypass, not a new map.

Shopmen, 1922

The Railroad Labor Board cut shop-craft wages effective July 1, 1922. Contracting-out of repairs—the open shop in the back shops—was already eating the crafts. Seven shop unions walked. About 400,000 men left at 10 a.m. on July 1. Train-service brotherhoods stayed at work. Freight and mail still moved, badly, with strikebreakers and shop work farmed out.

Board chairman Ben W. Hooper declared the strikers had forfeited their rights under the 1920 act. Harding floated a settlement in late July; the companies rejected it. On September 1, 1922, Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty obtained from Judge James H. Wilkerson in Chicago an injunction that swept picketing, assembly, and much of the strike’s speech with it. The walkout collapsed into local settlements. The 1877 strike remains the first national industrial walkout, on its own page. 1922 is the shopmen’s war under the Labor Board. It is why the 1926 Railway Labor Act exists.

The automobile and the passenger

Henry Ford’s Model T is a 1908 machine. The Federal Aid Road Act is a 1916 statute. What the 1920s did was make both ordinary. Registrations ran from about 3 million vehicles in 1916 to about 23 million by 1929. By 1925 the Model T sold around $260. Roads were still poor by later Interstate standards. Convenience beat the timetable anyway.

Railroads handled about a billion passengers in 1916. By 1930 the figure was about 700 million. In 1929 they recorded 34 billion passenger-miles; the automobile, 175 billion. Buses already held about 15 percent of the commercial passenger market. The long-distance limited still paid in prestige and sometimes in cash. The local mixed train and the short-haul coach did not. That split is the passenger story of this decade. The streamliner as an answer is 1934.

Interurbans

George W. Hilton and John F. Due remain the standard account. Interurban mileage peaked at 15,580 in 1916, stood at 15,337 in 1920, and had fallen to 10,422 by 1930. They dated a marked decline from about 1918. The Model T and hard roads did not wreck the steam railroad in the 1910s. They wrecked the interurban’s prospectus in the 1920s. The Depression finished most of what remained. Lines that lasted did so as freight railroads. The national overview is Interurbans & Streetcars.

Diesel switchers that stayed

A GE diesel-electric for the Jay Street Connecting Railroad in Brooklyn, No. 4, had been delivered late in 1918 and sent back within months. That experiment is the 1910s. What sold in this decade was the Alco–GE–Ingersoll-Rand boxcab of 1925, first on the Central Railroad of New Jersey and then on other terminal roads. They were switchers. They stayed on the property. They did not take the main line. Electro-Motive’s passenger boxcabs of 1935, the EA, and the FT of 1939 are the next decade. For the locomotive story see diesel locomotives.

Super Power steam

Steam was not a dying art in the 1920s. It was getting a larger firebox. Lima, under William E. Woodard, outshopped the A-1 2-8-4 Berkshire in 1925 for the Boston & Albany: Super Power, a four-wheel trailing truck under a grate that could make steam at speed. Northern Pacific took the idea onto a dual-service passenger and freight engine and put the first production 4-8-4s in service in December 1926—Class A, 2600–2611. The type encyclopedia is 4-8-4 Northerns. How Super Power works is on the steam hub.

New York Central needed something that could take four to six extra heavyweight cars that a K-5 Pacific could not. Alco delivered J-1a No. 5200 on February 14, 1927, the first North American 4-6-4 in regular design. President Patrick E. Crowley named it the Hudson, after the river. The class encyclopedia is NYC Hudsons. Streamlined Hudsons and the Dreyfuss J-3a are 1930s styling on a 1920s wheel arrangement.

Named trains

The 1920s still launched heavyweight name trains. Baltimore & Ohio’s Capitol Limited appeared in 1923. Santa Fe’s Chief left Chicago on November 14, 1926. Southern’s Crescent Limited dated from 1925. Great Northern’s Empire Builder from June 10, 1929. The heavyweight Daylight Limited of 1922 is not the 1937 streamlined Daylight. The 20th Century Limited was already a 1902 train. The Super Chief, the Hiawatha, the Zephyrs, and the M-10000 are 1930s. Named-train encyclopedias stay on those leaves and on Streamliners.

October 1929

The decade did not know it was a golden-age sunset. Freight still paid. The limiteds still ran. Super Power and the Hudson were new, not nostalgic. The automobile had already taken the short ride. The interurban was already shrinking. The ICC held rates and abandonments. Consolidation had been studied and not done.

October 1929 ended the easy credit that had papered over weak roads. Rock Island, Milwaukee, Erie, North Western, New Haven, and others went into the 1930s toward receivership. Those filings, the streamliners built to fill empty coaches, and Electro-Motive’s freight diesel are Railroads In The 1930s. The 1920s did not invent the Depression. They ran the last decade in which the steam railroad was still, in most towns, the default way to go.

Sources

Stover, John F. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York: Routledge, 1999. First-track peak 254,037 (1916); 249,052 (1930). Passenger-mile comparison, 1929. Vehicle registrations
DeNevi, Don. America’s Fighting Railroads. About 6,000 miles built 1920–29
Transportation Act (Esch–Cummins), February 28, 1920. Railroad Labor Board. Return from federal control, March 1, 1920
Railway Labor Act, May 20, 1926
Great Railroad Strike of 1922: shop crafts, July 1, 1922; about 400,000 men. Railroad Labor Board Decision 1036, wage cut effective July 1. Wilkerson injunction, Chicago, September 1, 1922 (Daugherty)
Hilton, George W., and John F. Due. The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960. 15,337 (1920); 10,422 (1930); peak 15,580 (1916)
Alco–GE–Ingersoll-Rand boxcab switchers, 1925. Jay Street Connecting GE No. 4, 1918, returned 1919
Lima A-1 2-8-4 Berkshire, 1925. Northern Pacific Class A 4-8-4, December 1926. NYC J-1a Hudson 5200, February 14, 1927. See also The Diesel Spotter’s Guide (Pinkepank); Schafer, Vintage Diesel Locomotives
Great Northern Cascade Tunnel opened January 12, 1929. Chicago Union Station, 1925
B&O Capitol Limited, 1923. Santa Fe Chief, November 14, 1926. Southern Crescent Limited, 1925. GN Empire Builder, June 10, 1929

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