Trains of the 1940s

After giving their all during World War II, the railroads looked ahead to a bright future of diesels and streamliners

Four weeks after Pearl Harbor, railroads are doing vital war work in moving men and materiel to the Pacific Coast

Giant 4-8-8-4s have gone to work hauling freight across Wyoming and Utah

Great railroad landmarks were prime targets in a daring Nazi sabotage plot conceived by the Fuehrer himself

Was it as bad as the newspaper columnists pictured it? It depends upon what train you rode and when you rode it

Diesels and line improvements help handle a 175-percent increase in freight traffic on a vital route to the West Coast

A Jack Benny radio gag was just a collection of L.A.-area place names — or was it?

CB&Q’s Vista Dome car and GM’s Astra Liner train are forerunners of radically different designs for postwar trains

Spend an hour at Chicago’s Englewood Union Station, where trains of four railroads keep the tracks busy

Troop sleepers on Donner, New Haven steam and diesel, interurbans in color, early postwar streamliners, draftees in Penn Station, prewar City of L.A., CB&Q on the SP, and more

A tower on NYC’s Electric Division routes passengers to Grand Central and freight down the West Side Line

30,000 miles of rail travel played an important part in the surprise re-election of the 33rd President

Sampling the Skytop lounge and other features of the Mil- waukee Road’s fine new trans- continental streamliner

. . . is in full swing. In 1949 the diesel bandwagon keeps rolling along, but some of its gilt paint is peeling off