Winter 2000

Winter 2000

By Angela Cotey | October 19, 2020

| Last updated on November 3, 2020

Classic Trains is a quarterly magazine celebrating the “golden years of railroading.” Each issue covers the North American railroad scene from the 1920s to the late 1970s with extraordinary photographs and compelling writing. Giant steam locomotives, colorful streamliners, down-home local trains, great passenger terminals, recollections of railroaders and train-watchers . . . they’re all in the pages of Classic Trains.

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Glory Days: A Zephyr She Ain’t

By Robert S. McGonigal

A Burlington Route motor car at Savannah, Mo., was a distant cousin indeed to the road’s marquee trains.

Tough Texans of the Bessemer

By Bert Pennypacker

Little Bessemer & Lake Erie operated America’s third largest fleet of 2-10-4’s-and they were awesome machines.

Serving the Railroad in the Middle of Nowhere

By Dick Dorn

At age 18, Maggie Mosher went to work for the Western Pacific as a wartime telegrapher in the Nevada desert.

The Flower of Travel Comfort

By Arthur Dubin

Named for Colorado’s state flower, UP’s Columbine offered elegant service between Chicago and Denver.

Waitin’ on the Railroad

By D. W. Bassett

For a Milwaukee Road switch crew in the prewar calm of 1940, waiting is “an immutable constant.”

Great Photographers: J. Parker Lamb: Witness to Transition

By John Gruber

After masterfully documenting the transition from steam, this photographer didn’t miss a beat in the dieselized 1960’s.

The Wreck at Little Falls

By Ben Alabastro

One night in 1940, something went tragically wrong for New York Central’s Lake Shore Limited.

The Rutland: A Salesman’s View

By Heaton L. Bullock

Bringing freight traffic to a lovable New England carrier in its last years.

Photo Classics

A gallery of color and black-and-white images, including Jersey Central Baldwins, a Rocket in Chicago, and a trio of interurbans.

By Train to Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga

By Curtis L. Katz

The old Jack Benny radio-show gag was just a collection of Los Angeles-area place names-or was it?

Classic Railroad Advertising: Postwar Promise

By Michael Zega

With wartime travel restrictions lifted and new rolling stock on order, the future seemed bright in the late 1940’s

Departments

Editor’s Page

When Things Aren’t What They Seem

Fallen Flags Remembered

Western Maryland

A Classic Year

1949: New diesels, old steam

The Way It Was

Green Bay to Chicago Death March • By John A. Grams The Pyramid • By Vernon L. Smith E Unit for Sale: $1.00 • By Alexander J. Stoops Jr. Ridgway Pusher • By William Hoehn The Fix Was In • By Ken Allsen

Bumping Post

Rock Island station, Des Moines

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