New York Central’s Flexi-Van system, unveiled in spring 1956, employed truck trailers with detachable wheels that locked on special flat cars, saving time, weight, and height. Other railroads that bought into the concept included Illinois Central and Milwaukee Road. Jim Shaughnessy photo […]
Missouri-Kansas-Texas MP15AC No. 58 is a 1980 product of EMD. The locomotive’s model designates the use of an alternator and rectifiers instead of the traditional generator to produce D.C. power for the traction motors. Other major U.S. buyers included Long Island Rail Road, Louisville & Nashville, Milwaukee Road, Seaboard Coast Line, and Southern Pacific. Lee […]
An Atlantic Coast Line laborer uses a long-handled brush to clean the windshield of E6 No. 520 at Florence, S.C. The locomotive is leading train 375, the Washington–Jacksonville Everglades. William D. Middleton photo […]
Santa Fe’s high-priority Super C freight between Chicago and Los Angeles debuted with much fanfare in 1968. High rates, charged to placate other Santa Fe customers, limited traffic, however. Santa Fe photo […]
Swift & Co. had a large soybean processing plant on the Nickel Plate Road at Frankfort, Ind. In this 1946 view, beans arrived by boxcar, with outbound soy meal loaded in sacks in boxcars (the boxcar in the background) and soybean oil loaded in tank cars. Nickel Plate Road photo […]
Eastern Gas & Fuel’s modern Wharton No. 2 mine southwest of Barrett, W.Va., will load 105 hoppers, including subject C&O 134594 and 47859, with coal on June 2, 1955. Trains’ Editor David P. Morgan tracked the cars from mine to ship in the April 1956 issue. W.A. Akin Jr. photo […]
Santa Fe FT No. 100 was not only the railroad’s first mainline freight diesel, but part of the first order for mainline freight diesel power by any U.S. railroad. Eventually, the railroad would use 320 of the Electro-Motive products to dieselize its transcontinental main line. Santa Fe photo […]
New EMD F40PH diesels lead the westbound San Francisco Zephyr east of Denver in June 1981. Amtrak acquired more than 200 such locomotives in multiple batches. Bob Johnston photo […]
Seaboard Coast Line Alco C628 No. 2201 leads a mixed consist of locomotives at Colliers Yard near Petersburg, Pa., waiting for a cut of cars. The six-axle Alco was built in 1963 for the Atlantic Coast Line. Walter Gay photo […]
The 2-10-4 wheel arrangement, the “Texas type,” originated with a modified Santa Fe 2-10-2 — No. 3829, built by Baldwin in 1919. The railroad would eventually roster 36 additional Texas-type locomotives, built by Baldwin between 1930 and 1944. T.H. Cole Jr. photo […]
In fall 1942, Minneapolis & St. Louis 2-6-0 No. 331 heads for Story City, Iowa, northwest from Minerva Junction and Marshalltown. In the 1950s, GE and Alco diesels would replace steam and the local would run just Tuesdays and Fridays. William F. Armstrong photo […]
Mountains and rivers defined the scenic attraction of the Northern Pacific. Here, an A-B-B-A set of F units leads a six-locomotive consist on a freight following the Yakima River near Ellensburg, Wash., in 1964. Tom Gildersleeve photo […]
