Summer 2018

General Electric’s nimble 70-ton diesel was a popular choice for short lines seeking to modernize in the post-World War II era

Read another of Russ Tedder’s South Georgia 70-tonner tales, “Watermelon Extra.”

A rumor-based trek from Colorado to Arizona in July 1968 pays off

On March 25, 1961, this northern Michigan line put its Mogul and combine on the regular freight for railfans

On a five-day auto trip from Detroit in August 1962, the nine little railroads we photographed differed widely

16 photos (13 in color) show us 14 short lines (5 in steam) in 12 states from Vermont to Mississippi to California

After succeeding the abandoned Toledo & Western interurban, this interstate freight-hauling short line lasted two decades

Little Birmingham & Southeastern was short on business but long on courtesy

In 1970, a little railroad in Alabama was the last practitioner of an unbroken tradition that spanned nearly 150 years

Watch color film footage from the Sunday River Productions archives of Mobile & Gulf’s 2-6-0 in action.

For a budding teenage railfan in 1946, Santa Fe’s depot was the classroom and its locomotive engineers the teachers

Hungry for more than commuter trains and single-unit local freights, two friends seek out Erie Lackawanna big diesels and mainline action

One railroad found some creative ways to dispose of tons of steam-locomotive waste

College in Rhode Island cemented my ties to the New Haven and laid a foundation for the future

See more of Chris Burger’s photos from his Providence years.