N&W’s eastbound Pocahontas descends Christiansburg Hill toward Roanoke on April 21, 1971 – ten days before Amtrak. J. David Ingles The air was chilly and damp as I stood beneath the eaves of the weather-beaten depot in Lynchburg, Va. I was waiting for the train that would take me back to Cincinnati one last time. […]
Low-drivered 2-8-0 No. 2174 struggles to keep up with 4-6-0 No. 1389 on CN train 48 for Winnipeg. Hal Lewis In the 1950s, Canadian National, as a government-owned railroad, was forced to operate many money-losing passenger trains because these trains were the only available mode of transportation in the areas they served. Such was the […]
“Big, beautiful” Santa Fe 4-8-4 3779 talks it up through Pasadena’s Lamanda Park area with First No. 3, the California Limited for Los Angeles, in June 1945. Stan Kistler I lived in Pasadena, Calif., during the final days of steam on the Santa Fe. I particularly remember the 3776-class 4-8-4’s built by Baldwin in 1941. […]
With the empty SP track to the right, SP&S RS3 78 trundles past with a short freight at Albany, Ore., on March 18, 1967. David Lustig Where were you on March 18, 1967? I was in Albany, Ore., a teenager waiting patiently for a southbound Southern Pacific freight train that I knew in my bones […]
With engineer Steiner at the throttle of Nickel Plate Road 893, fireman Jennings shows photographer Lewis the coal scoop, which Lewis often wielded aboard the old 2-8-0. Hal Lewis In 1949, on the Nickel Plate Road’s Peoria Division, a daily eastbound local freight, operated as Second 68, ran from Peoria to Frankfort, Ind. Its power […]
A Reading I-8sb 2-8-0, standard freight power on the road’s Wilmington & Northern branch, is a long way from that bucolic line as it heads a local freight at Newtown Junction in Philadelphia on November 22, 1947. Leslie R. Ross When I was a teenager, some 60 years ago, I spent much time exploring, watching, […]
Looking not unlike Miss Hazen’s train 719, an unidentified Bay Head local rockets out of South Amboy behind Pennsy K4 5428 circa 1940. Frank Quin Life can be funny sometimes. The first railroad tracks I ever saw were those of the New York & Long Branch at Manasquan, N.J., in the mid-1930’s. But I don’t […]
Author Hartley finally caught up with the elusive New Haven FA’s in Boston. Allan G. Hartley The New Haven Railroad was the perfect pike for a young railroad enthusiast. Station agents and block operators always would take the time to talk and tell me about what would be arriving next. Train crews were professional, yet […]
To our family, the ultimate train was not the Broadway, the 20th Century, or the exalted Dominion that plied our home Canadian Pacific rails out of Toronto. For us, the train was CPR’s nameless workaday No. 25, leaving daily at 10:30 (reading as 9:30 in the days when timetables were printed in Standard Time regardless […]
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In 1942, for a boy seeking brand-new road power, old Reading Camelback 0-6-0 1323 was nothing special—but would that we could ride her today! George Gillespie Younger readers must wonder why we old-timers gloat over some picture taken during our youth. It’s the sentimental attachment and memories of a wonderful period, of course. My father […]
Depot and diesel wear different heralds, but nothing is out of the ordinary as a Chicago Great Western freight ambles past the Rock Island station in Waterloo, Iowa, in June 1961. Richard J. Anderson A family visit took me to Waterloo, Iowa, on a June day in 1961, but it was good ol’ railfan instinct […]
