The son of a civil engineer who helped build bridges for the Cotton Belt and Kansas City Southern railways, Barriger spent most of his childhood in St. Louis, where he developed a passion for railroading during visits to Union Station. During high school, he began to accrue railroad-related materials. At 17, he went to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1921, he earned an engineering degree from MIT in Cambridge. He left the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1927 to work as a securities analyst on Wall Street. In 1934, he was hired as chief of the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. During his seven years there, he amassed over 50,000 railroad-related photographs. Afterwards, he went on to become president of a number of railroad companies, including the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, Monon and Missouri-Kansas-Texas. After being moved several times, the John W. Barriger III National Railroad collection became part of the Mercantile Library, the oldest cultural institution west of the Mississippi River. The collection contains more than 45,000 volumes dating to the early days of American railroads in the 1820s and over 72,000 photographs depicting 200 North American railroads.
The son of a civil engineer who helped build bridges for the Cotton Belt and Kansas City Southern railways, Barriger spent most of his childhood in St. Louis, where he developed a passion for railroading during visits to Union Station. During high school, he began to accrue railroad-related materials. At 17, he went to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1921, he earned an engineering degree from MIT in Cambridge. He left the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1927 to work as a securities analyst on Wall Street. In 1934, he was hired as chief of the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. During his seven years there, he amassed over 50,000 railroad-related photographs. Afterwards, he went on to become president of a number of railroad companies, including the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, Monon and Missouri-Kansas-Texas. After being moved several times, the John W. Barriger III National Railroad collection became part of the Mercantile Library, the oldest cultural institution west of the Mississippi River. The collection contains more than 45,000 volumes dating to the early days of American railroads in the 1820s and over 72,000 photographs depicting 200 North American railroads.
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