# About the Archive
The Railroad Collector is a passion project dedicated to preserving railroad history through original research and carefully curated materials.
This archive grew out of years of collecting, photographing, and documenting the small artifacts that tell the bigger story of American railroading — switch keys, padlocks, lanterns, station signs, builder’s plates, china, and the paper trail of timetables, rules, and orders.
## What we preserve
We focus on hard-to-find primary materials. Many items in this archive are unique or near-unique, and we work to ensure their context — railroad attribution, date, location, photographer, prior owners — travels with them.
## How you can help
If you collect, research, or just love railroad history, you can contribute. [Submit items to the archive](/contribute/), share photographs and documents, or [become a sponsor](/partners/pricing/) to keep this work going.