USRP Badges

Probably no other area of railroadiana collecting had been as adversely affected by counterfeits as railroad police badges. So many counterfeit badges have entered the railroadiana market that collectors understandably view any unfamiliar badge marking as a likely indication that the badge is a fake.

Thus when a question regarding a "United States Railroad Police" badge was recently posted to our question board, some collectors were skeptical. Most railroad collectors and historians are familiar with the United States Railroad Administration or USRA, the governmental organization that took over US railroads during World War One, but the United States Railroad Police is virtually unknown. However, documentation sent in by Chip Greiner suggests that this was a real organization and that badges marked for the USRP may indeed be authentic. According to Chip...

"The United State Railroad Police was formed between 1918-1920 in an effort by the US Government to put all railroads (USRA) police departments under single control. According to the documentation of the USRA, the United States Railroad Police only lasted two years, and W.J. Flynn of the US Secret Service (NY Field Office) was appointed as Director at a salary of $7,500 a year. Seth Curran (Connecticut) did all the research, and I have copies of all the WWI paper work on it [see document #1 and document #2 -- Also see Notes]... The badges are very rare, and I have a Patrolman and a Captain which was "dug" from the right of way by a treasure hunter with a metal detector....The Patrolman badge ran up to the #4000's and the Captain's badge I have is a 3 digit number. My Superintendent badge is #76. As these were issued to each Superintendent of each railroad, there were probably at least 100 issued. I don't know if there was a Sergeant badge. The big question remains as to where they all went. In my 30 years of collecting I have seen 4 Patrolman badges, 1 Captain, 1 Lieutenant, and 2 Superintendent badges."

Moral of the story: The rush to judge unfamiliar items as fakes may be premature, and good documentation and research can authenticate an otherwise questionable item. However it must also be said that in the absence of such information, skepticism should prevail. See our discussion on this issue: Disclaimer and Things to Consider.

Shown below are images of USRP badges marked "CAPTAIN", "PATROLMAN" and "SUPERINTENDENT" respectively.

Notes: The documents referrred to in the text are roughly 88K in size. If you use Internet Explorer and have "automatic image resizing" turned on, these images may shrink in your browser window. To turn this off, go to [Tools] [Internet Options] [Advanced], scroll down to the Multimedia section, and uncheck "Enable Automatic Image Resizing". Click Apply.

Our thanks to Chip Greiner, Seth Bramson, and Kent Theurich. Kent has indicated that he would like to hear from others who have more information about these badges. Email him at SUKEN@aol.com. Chip also can be reached at RRBADGES@aol.com