At least eight 60-centimeter-guage 2-6-2Ts of the type used by the U.S. Army on temporary railways in France during World War I are visible in this scene at Fort Benning, Georgia, after the war. Baldwin, Davenport, and Vulcan built some 296 of the diminutive engines. Fort Benning’s 27-mile line moved men and material around the […]
Between 1942 and ’48, Baltimore & Ohio’s Mount Clare shops in Baltimore created 40 essentially new dual-service 4-8-2s. The class T-3 Mountain types were “essentially” new because their boilers came from retired Mikados and Pacifics. Here, the first T-3, No. 5555, nears completion. Photo by Baltimore & Ohio […]
New York Central 4-8-2 2952 storms through Waterloo, Indiana, 367 miles west of Buffalo, with a westbound freight in 1948. NYC called its 600 4-8-2s “Mohawks” after the river the road’s main line followed across New York state. Photo by Robert A. Hadley […]
Pacific Fruit Express was co-owned by Union Pacific and Southern Pacific. This 40-foot class R-30-12 car, built in 1923, had a wood body and steel underframe. It was typical of the thousands of “modern” refrigerator cars through the 1930s. Photo by Standard Steel Car Co. […]
Alco RSD5 572 leads the Milwaukee Road’s local freight to Sparta and Viroqua, Wisconsin, out of La Crosse in October 1971. At right is Grand Crossing tower, guardian of a tangle of tracks that includes the Chicago–Twin Cities main lines of MILW and Burlington Northern. Photo by J. W. Schultz […]
In artwork promoting the Milwaukee Road’s 1947 Olympian Hiawatha, Mom says goodnight to Jimmy and Sally in the upper and lower berths of a section in a new “Touralux” car. Specially built for the Olympian Hi, the Touralux sleepers contained 14 extra-roomy, semi-private sections. Photo by Milwaukee Road […]
Electro-Motive’s four-wheel road-diesel truck, named for the mechanical engineer who designed it, Martin Blomberg, was introduced on the NW3 and FT models of 1939. Since then the Blomberg truck has been used under tens of thousands of diesels, including new models introduced more than 75 years later. Photo by Classic Trains collection […]
The trailing truck for Lima’s 1925 demonstrator locomotive No. 1, the first 2-8-4 Berkshire type, featured four wheels to support the engine’s large firebox — a major advance in steam design. The piping was for a booster engine which drove the truck’s rear axle. Photo by Lima Locomotive Works […]
One of the Interstate Railroad’s ten Alco RS3 diesel locomotives switches hopper cars in the road’s yard at Andover, Virginia, in May 1960. The 88-mile coal-hauler’s diesels wore a colorful gray-orange-silver scheme. The Southern Railway bought the Interstate in June 1961. Photo by Steve Patterson […]
Few Railway Post Office cars survived the big cuts of 1967. Among the handful that remained was the St. Paul & Aberdeen RPO on Milwaukee Road train 15, the truncated remnant of the Olympian Hiawatha, on which clerks are seen at work in the spring of 1968. Photo by Don L. Hofsommer […]
The Santa Fe’s Hi-Level coaches, introduced in 1956 on the Chicago–L.A. El Capitan, featured reclining leg-rest seats, air-powered sliding doors, and Southwest Indian imagery. […]
A GP35 and three GP30s lead a 47-car freight up the west side of Denver & Rio Grande Western’s Tennessee Pass at Mitchell, Colorado, in September 1969. Indicative of the severity of the grade, four F units and two older Geeps are cut in as mid-train helpers. […]
