TEHACHAPI, Calif. — “Technology has been a longtime coming, it’s not just the talk about AI and virtual imagery and this sort of thing, technology was a thirty-six inch pipe wrench over someone’s shoulder and an iron spike. The iron spikes and the iron rails actually came across the Atlantic from England because America didn’t have the industrial base until the golden spike was driven,” said Larry Wines, who is on the curatorial staff for the Tehachapi Depot Railway Museum.
For National Train Day Wines curated a special display focusing on the golden spike and told me the history of railroads is about much more than the technology, it is about the ways in which the railroads shaped our society.
“The railroads opened up culture, by giving immigrant groups the opportunity to get gainful employment and learn skills. That led directly to the Pullmans Porter Union which was the first African American union,” Wines said
The railroads were responsible for shaping the economy of Southern California.
“It led to the development of agriculture in the Central Valley, it led to the development of Los Angeles, once Los Angeles was connected by rail to San Francisco. It probably helped with the building up of the Kern oil fields,” said Stephen Smith, President of the Friends of Tehachapi Depot.
“The railroad volunteer conductor shared that there’s a history behind each era of different locomotives that were built. I studied sociology, that's what I do actually and I didn't really know that,” said Daniel Landeros, who was attending the museum.
Wines said it is important to focus not just on the progress the railroads presented, but also the people that were affected, such as the deaths of millions of bison, which severely hurt the Native Americans that were dependent on the animals' migration.
“Any technological change isn’t all good, sometimes there are intended negative consequences to things we need to be aware of all this. Looking into the past often times prepares us for what we need to look for in the future,” Wines said.
