Industrial Archives & Library

10/21/2026

Lehigh University’s newspaper just published an article highlighting some of our and our staff’s history as well as collections relating to Bethlehem.

Just off campus, the Industrial Archives & Library collects and preserves archives from all industries. For the Bethlehem natives and former Bethlehem Steel employees who run it, preserving steel history is especially important.

09/20/2026

Our film from the Eagleson Collection this time around takes a quick look at action in Elizabeth, NJ. In addition to the Aerotrain, a GM experiment that rode rough and was deemed a failure, we get a train headed to the NY&LB pulled by a steam locomotive, evidence that it came from Jersey City instead of NY Penn.

09/06/2026

Labor Day weekend is the traditional end of the season at the New Jersey Shore. In this clip from the Michael Eagleson Collection we see a pair of trains meeting at Brielle, one PRR, one CNJ. This line, the New York and Long Branch, was jointly operated by both companies, now NJ Transit, and serves the northern portion of the Shore.

08/23/2026

Our first post featuring 8MM film features Raritan River Railroad 21 taking a spin on the turntable at South Amboy, NJ. In the diesel era, they were known for clean, well maintained EMD switchers. In the steam era they rostered a fleet of 0-6-0 switchers, many of which, including this one, were ex military from WW2. This movie is from the collection of Michael Eagleson but was not taken by him, orginial cinematographer unknown.

08/10/2026

After a month hiatus, we return to Machine Tool Monday. Seen here is a photo created for either sales literature or a manual of a 96" boring and turning lathe made by Niles. While many of the photos in this collection show machines or details of their parts, there is a percentage that has the background fully eliminated and all of the major parts labeled for the uninitiated (like this author).
Progress is being made on scanning all of our Niles photos, after which we do the few binders of Pond machines that also arrived as part of this collection from NSH.

08/09/2026

With Reading and Northern 425 currently under restoration to operation, we thought we'd take a little look back at her career through the lens of Michael Eagleson. Here we see an excursion about to enter Port Clinton, as viewed from the PA Route 61 bridge in the early 1990s.

08/06/2026

One thing lacking from many pictures of industrial subjects (railroads included) is the people needed to make things happen. In this early 1960s view we see Mike Eagleson serving as operator at Great Notch tower. Many college students got summer jobs working as vacation relief in stations and towers or on maintenance of way gangs.

07/05/2026

Our final look at the American Freedom Train shows the whole of the massive consist from Michael Eagleson's vantagepoint on the far side of Horseshoe Curve. Hoping everyone had a wonderful 250th!

07/04/2026

One of the less known collections at IAL is from the lighting division of GE at Nela Park. Fitting for the 4th is this issue of Light magazine, all about the work GE did for the centennial of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. We acquired all sorts of material from here, including publications on specialized lighting for industrial applications and all sorts of other documents related to the development of lighting in the US.

07/02/2026

Friend of IAL Jim Herold shared with us this image of Cambria and Indiana 36, one of several pieces of equipment that Bethlehem Steel railroads would paint for the Bicentennial. The C&I would also paint a hopper and a caboose, the P&BR a locomotive. Many of today's railroads have picked up on this tradition and done the same for the 250th!