Ebay is a good source for public and employee timetables. I find the EETTs more valuable as far as information goes but more expensive, of course.
The emphasis should probably be on employee timetables for several reasons.
Public timetables are basically intended to tell passengers what they need to know, such as passenger train times and a bit of information about consists. They do have some usefulness, but were basically a form of advertising for the railroad.
Employee timetables, on the other hand, provide a great deal of very useful additional information. Every operating employee was, and still is, required to have an up-to-date employee timetable when on duty. They start with scheduled trains (Passenger; Mail/Express; Freight). The amount of information varies from railroad to railroad, but often gets into a great deal of detail about authorized speed limits, signaling, track structure details, junctions and the control of traffic through them, clearances, weight restrictions, etc. ad infinitum. Highly recommended.
Tom
Trains shows usually have vendors who sell old timetables although it is hit or miss finding the specific period and road you are looking for. Usually I can find a timetable within a year of when I am interested. Sometimes I get real lucky and find exactly the time period I was looking for.
Try searching for "employee timetables" and associate that term with each of the RRs you're interested in. The "schedule" is in the "timetable," so I suspect that the more accurate term may yield better results. The ETT should have all scheduled trains in it -- and it's only the rare passenger train that's unscheduled, because people, umm, want to get there on time
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I have been planning my dream layout of the lines revolving around much of the Washington DC area. Because of the often unmentioned nature of the prototype and variety of power and operations around I am contemplating a layout with the ability to change decades from the 30s-today(with modeler's liscence being employed of course). Both sides of the family being in the immediate area and the stories told have heavily influenced my decision.
Recently I have come to realize that I have been living with a critical stumbling block when it comes to operations. I am lacking the freight and passenger schedules for the C&O, Southern, and Norfolk Western. Knowledge of these roads trains are very lacking online or I have been missing something I am unaware of. One thing that should be made clear is that I refer to local passenger schedules. I have already found main streamliner schedules from places like streamlinerschedules.com. However, local passenger service and freight schedules have been nill.
The lines in question are the Southern Washington-Atlanta main line, and the N&W H-Line (Hagerstown, MD-Roanoke). The C&O ran on trackage rights from Clifton Forge to DC so both it and the SOU will go hand in hand. There were no streamliners on the H-Line but I would extra appreciate any knowledge of local passenger schedules from here.
I am especially interested in anything pre-Amtrak, CSX and NS related that one might know of online or can leave via link here. I am also open to suggestions on where copies of them can be purchased if needs be.
Thanks to the wonderful members of the model railroad community for their help.