Firearms - Passengers carrying pistols?
From: "Alvaro Escobar" aldavi1@hotmail.com
Were passengers allowed to carry pistols on the trains?
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 8:27 AM
Monday, January 16, 2006
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3 Comments:
There is some evidence that passengers did have pistols. See the 1872 personal account of Walter Scott Fitz.
Railroad photographer J. B. Silvis had a pistol in his Photograph Car.
Rules from 1882 Transcontinental Railroad Timetable:
" ... Guns will be transported in baggage car, by special arrangement of owner with train baggageman, ... 25 cents for each passenger division.
From: Hsweetser@aol.com
A late 1870s or early 1880s newspaper reference I have (it would probably take me some time to find it) told of passengers on SP trains traveling through the southern San Joaquin Valley shooting at wildlife from the car windows. Most likely they were using rifles, though.
A report in the October 28, 1887 Stockton Independent (Stockton, Calif.) (1:2) told of train robbers in Texas being driven off by trainmen and passengers (my very brief note did not specifically say driven off "with guns" but this is probably how they did it. Also, I didn't note the railroad).
The September 17, 1907 Tulare County Times (Visalia, Calif.) told of an attempted SP train robbery at or near Tracy being foiled by gun-firing passengers. This story was probably widely carried in California newspapers at that time.
—John Sweetser
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