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.
Feature Articles
Rock Island in Kansas City, 1962-1964: Still Living in the Past
Read more about the Rock Island’s 1960s diesel menagerie in a PDF of the December 1965 TRAINS magazine article “Christine and the Mongeese” by J. David Ingles
Grouping America’s Railroads: The Transportation Act of 1920
Ingles Color Classics: When Illinois Got to Say Good-Bye
The Shaughnessy Files: Over the Hills and Through the Woods
Bird’s-Eye View: Central’s New England Beachhead
Resourceful Crew on a 2-10-2
Baldwins, Beaumont, and the Battle to Move Iron Ore
The Long Way Back to School
Of Riding BC&G’s Motor B, a Rickety Homebuilt Caboose, and Rainelle’s ‘Streetcar’
In Every Issue
Welcome
Those dazzling diesels
Contributors
Meet this issue’s crew
Head End
CB&Q Mikado 4960 on flood duty in 1965 • Richard Steinheimer photo exhibit • New home for SP 4449 and SP&S 700 in Portland • Copper Range Railroad coach • Obituaries: William D. Middleton, W. L. Gwyer, William J. Cole, Merwin A. “Mert” Leet
Fast Mail
Letters from our readers
True Color
Sterling performers of Northwestern Steel & Wire
Fallen Flags Remembered
Toledo, Peoria & Western: Illinois’ comeback kid
Classics Today
West Virginia’s tourist lines
The Way it Was
‘Like hell they will’ • ‘Let us ride your bikes, we’ll let you shovel coal’ • ‘Jump, kid, jump!’ • Conrail brings Reading Co. Alco Centurys to Cleveland
Car Stop
Trolley cars made Scranton the ‘Electric City’
Ready Track
Reviews of new books and new DVD
Second Section
‘To me, the steam age at its best’
Bumping Post
Evening rush hour on Northwestern Pacific in Sausalito, Calif.