Spring 2001

Spring 2001

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: Off to Work They Go

By Robert S. McGonigal

Imagine how Montreal commuters felt in the 1950’s riding to work in open-window cars behind CP Pacifics.

Electrics in the Diesel Age

By William D. Middleton

Mainline railroad electrification was the bright new dawn that never came.

Icebound Off Ludington

By Robert S. McGonigal

For railroaders who ran the Lake Michigan carferries, ice was their biggest enemy.

Great Photographers: For Richard Solomon, Trains Have Come Full Circle

By John Gruber

Sharp 1958 Kodachromes of diesels, steam, and traction have given way to the electronic imaging of today.

Denting New York Central’s Last Steam Bastion

By Robert Aldag Jr.

When a Fairbanks-Morse demonstrator diesel conquered the Indiana Division.

Photo Classics

Steam-powered trains, in color, on Central Vermont, Chicago & North Western, Rock Island, and Rio Grande . . . and more.

Hitchin’ a Ride

By J. David Ingles

In an Illinois snowstorm in 1964, a Wabash freight was the only way home.

Memoirs of a Railroad Janitor

By Ron Flanary

The Southern Railway of the 1960’s was a place for adventure, even for a college guy.

Two Bad Days for a K4

By John A. Terhune

A fireman recalls two low points in the career of an otherwise dependable Pennsylvania 4-6-2.

A Little Time for an Old Enemy

By Richard Steinheimer

How one photographer came to appreciate the F’s that vanquished his beloved Southern Pacific steam.

Classic Railroad Advertising: The Bitter End

By Michael Zega

As postwar prosperity proved to be a mirage, the railroads turned away from passenger advertising.

Departments

Editor’s Page

What Might Have Been

Fallen Flags Remembered

St. Louis-San Francisco

A Classic Year

1935: Hard times, high speed, and a bridge called Huey

The Way It Was

Talking to the Man in the Hat, by Michael G. McHale • Some Water on the Cheap, by C. K. Marsh Jr. • A Window in Thrums, by Steven Duff • Outfits I Have Known, by Michael J. McLaughlin • ACL No. 1 Falters, by Thomas Francis • Scene from a Sunday Drive, by Charles M. Mizell Jr.

Bumping Post

King Street and Union stations, Seattle

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