Our
Projects
Founders Series is the inaugural group of projects and works being developed. It brings together a curated set of research-driven, museum-quality projects focused on foundational people, places, moments, and questions in railroad history. Deliverables are expected, starting in 2026, to celebrate 200 years of american rail.
Founders Series Titles:
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Charles Carroll of Carrollton: America’s First Entrepreneur
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The First 13 Miles of American Rail
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When Iron Met Rubber
Charles Carroll of Carrollton:
America’s First Entrepreneur
Charles Carroll of Carrollton: America’s First Entrepreneur reexamines one of early America’s most consequential figures through the intersecting forces of enterprise, land, politics, religion, influence, and infrastructure. It considers Carroll not only as a famous patriot and declaration signer, but as a strategic entrepreneurial figure whose choices and relationships helped shape his era, including the early formation of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
Project delivery expected in August 2026.
Project Output: Starting July 12, 2026, there will be a series of live presentation events on Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Also planned is a book, interpretive digital art, and children's educational materials. Those details are being made available throughout 2026. Items to be made available online and through museum gift shops.
The First 13 Miles of American Rail
The First 13 Miles of American Rail reexamines the 13-mile, world-changing stretch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills where the railroad industry began to prove itself in practical terms. In a landscape already shaped by farming, mills, roads, river power, quarries, and trade, the B&O showed that rail transportation could be more than an experiment. This corridor brought together the conditions for economic growth and revealed the railroad’s promise as an engine of movement, commerce, and connection. The project explores the people, places, and infrastructure that made those first miles so consequential.
Project delivery expected in late 2026.
Expected Output: A museum quality painting and prints to be made available online and through museum gift shops. A placeholder image is shown above. The final artwork will be different from the placeholder image below. Also planned is a book, presentations, live events, interpretive digital art, educational and companion materials. Those details will be made available as we get closer to the end of 2026.
When Iron Met Rubber
When Iron Met Rubber is a project exploring the symbolic meeting of railroad power and automobile-era ambition in the modern industrial age. Through research and interpretation, it examines and imagines a plausible “what if” event. There are no known records of it, but what if it actually happened? The larger significance of an encounter between established rail power and a new transportation era is what gives the imagined meeting its power.
Project delivery expected in early 2027.
Expected Output: A museum quality painting and prints to be made available online and through museum gift shops. Also planned is a short story, presentations, live events, interpretive digital art, educational and companion materials. Those details will be made available as we get closer to 2027.
