Ross Rowland made his fortune on Wall Street, but his passion was steam locomotives, and in 1979 he bought and refurbished the Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614, a 112-foot, 239-ton engine, and started the High Iron Co., which offered trips around the Mid-Atlantic States in authentic rail cars pulled by vintage locomotives (thank you Doug!)

From his office in a converted train station in Lebanon, N.J., he directed trips from Hoboken up the Hudson River, or across northern New Jersey to Port Jervis, N.Y., along the Delaware River.

Mr. Rowland was the prime mover behind the Golden Spike Centennial Limited, which in 1969 carried passengers from Grand Central Terminal in New York City to Promontory, Utah, to mark the 100th anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad.

A few years later, he created the American Freedom Train, a traveling museum stocked with choice items from the Smithsonian Institution — George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, Joe Louis’s boxing trunks — that cruised through all 48 contiguous states in 1975 and 1976 in celebration of the country’s bicentennial.

When he was 14, he ran away from home after a fight with his parents. In California, he found work at a luxury resort frequented by John Wayne. But after three years, Mr. Wayne, who had hired him as a driver, told Ross to go home to his mother, which he did.

He completed high school, but instead of attending college, he followed a friend to Wall Street, where he founded Floor Broker Associates. It executed commodities trades for some of the biggest investment firms in the country.

Soon after conceiving the Golden Spike Centennial Limited, Mr. Rowland reached out to influential friends for help — including Mr. Wayne. The actor rode along on the train from New York to Salt Lake City, where he tied its arrival to the local debut of his 1969 movie “True Grit.”

Afterward, Mr. Wayne told Mr. Rowland that with the national bicentennial coming up, he should think about replicating the Golden Spike’s success, but on a grander scale. The American Freedom Train was born.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/travel/ross-e-rowland-jr-dead.html

The train was pulled by a former Reading Railway locomotive that had been headed for scrap when it was rescued and restored. The Freedom Train consisted of 10 display cars, which had been created out of former baggage cars to exhibit some 500 pieces of cultural history, ranging from George Washington’s copy of the Constitution to Martin Luther King’s clerical robes to a piece of rock from the Moon.

The train had two showcase cars, with windows cut in the sides to afford views day and night of historic inventions, a replica of the Apollo lunar lander and the Freedom Bell along with a diverse array of Americana.

Elmer Shuttleworth of Canaan had been summoned out of retirement to serve as engineer for the next leg of the train’s itinerary. Attired in crisp trainman’s blue garb and with his cap showing his Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers union button, Shuttleworth shook hands with Freedom Train officials and climbed up into the cabin and took control.

https://vnews.com/2025/09/07/white-river-junction-steam-trains/