Guns of the Railroad Bulls
Railway Bulls, a term for railroad police popularized by hobos and bindle stiffs riding the rails during the Great Depression, have always had their own flavor in firearms preferences and needs. From the 1840s through today the arms they have carried have reflected the needs of their times.The original railway bulls were private detectives hired typically from the agency of Allan Pinkerton. Pinkertons, dressed in city suits, armed with revolvers usually of their personal arsenal, and empowered to enforce their own brand of justice in defending the railway and its interests, were a force to be reckoned within the latter part of the 19th century in more ways than one.
As an example of how varied the armament of Old West era railway police could be, one need look no further than the Roscoe gunfight in 1874. In said gunfight Pinkerton railway detectives Louis Lull and John Boyle in the small Missouri town of Roscoe bumped into the Younger gang. It’s not recorded what Boyle brought to the table but it is known that Lull open carried an English-made .43-caliber Trantor with a 5 7/8 inch barrel and a concealed No. 2 Smith & Wesson revolver into the fight. When the smoke cleared, both train robber John Younger and Pinkerton Agent Louis Lull were dead….
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