Before the whiteout

Black, red, and yellow diesel locomotive on passenger train

Before the whiteout Wearing the handsome yellow, black, and red Kansas City Southern passenger-diesel livery, E8 No. 28 is at Sallisaw, Okla., with the New Orleans-Kansas City Southern Belle in June 1962. KCS began using a version of this paint scheme, introduced with the Belle in 1940. The railroad later went to all-red and all-white […]

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How to visit Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum

steam passenger train in Tennessee

Visiting Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum If you took a major Class I railroad in the early 1950s, shrunk it, and set it aside to show people today what a section of big-time, steam-era railroading was all about, you’d create Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Set on a portion of Southern Railway’s original main line into Chattanooga, […]

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Baldwin’s best?

Profile of diesel locomotive with pointed nose

Baldwin’s best? Baldwin’s best-known diesels are its sharknose cab units, in particular the DR-4-4-15 and RF-16 freight units that became favorites among railfans. Here DR-4-4-15 demonstrator 6001 and a booster pause at Des Moines, Iowa, on the Wabash in 1950. Louis A. Marre collection […]

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Canadian contrasts

Streamlined steam locomotive in front of box-like diesel locomotive

Canadian contrasts Canadian National U-4-a 6404’s rounded contours contrast with the angular lines of a nearby SW1200RS diesel switcher, although the 4-8-4’s traditional-style signal/marker lamps, boxy numberboards, and spoked engine-truck wheels detract from its streamlined appearance. Jim Shaughnessy photo […]

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Distinctive duo

Black diesel switcher locomotive

Distinctive duo Electro-Motive’s first two diesel switchers, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Nos. 425 and 426, were built at General Electric’s Erie, Pa., plant prior to the opening of EMC’s own assembly plant at LaGrange, Ill. The pioneering locomotives, built in 1935, have distinctive cab, hood, and truck designs that wouldn’t be repeated on later EMC […]

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Northern Pacific Railway locomotives

  All through May 2021, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the style, glamour and grit of the Northern Pacific Railway. Please enjoy this NP locomotive photo gallery sourced from the archives of the David P. Morgan Library at Kalmbach Media. Only from Classic Trains! […]

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GE diesel donated to Kentucky Steam

Gray diesel with red and yellow trim

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp. has added a C30-7 diesel to its collection, a gif from the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society. The locomotive is one of 44 of the road-switchers ordered by the Louisville & Nashville from General Electric in 1979-80, and spent most of its operating life with CSX Transportation. Retired […]

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New Photo: CSX repaints F40PH locomotive

Diesel locomotive in fresh gray, blue, and black paint

CSX Transportation has repainted one of its executive fleet F40PH locomotives in a paint scheme inspired by predecessor Baltimore & Ohio. The city of Baltimore chartered the railroad on Feb. 28, 1827, to build west to a suitable point on the Ohio River. Ground was broken on July 4, 1828, at Carrollton, Md. By 1929 […]

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Doug Harrop’s Utah

Sun highlight diesel locomotive exhaust of train in curve

Doug Harrop retired from Union Pacific in 2003. He hired out with the Southern Pacific in 1967 in Arizona. He left the management ranks a decade later to return to Utah to enter engine service out of Ogden. Known for his photographic coverage of Utah, Harrop’s enthusiasm for railroads took him across the continent. He […]

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Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum adds two BL2 locomotives

Blue, gray, and yellow semi-streamlined diesels

NORTH JUDSON, Ind. — The Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum will add two rare EMD BL2 locomotives to its collection through a lease with the engines’ private owner. The two locomotives, built in 1949 for Maine’s Bangor & Aroostock Railroad, previously operated on New York’s Saratoga & North Creek Railway. Only 59 of the locomotives were […]

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Anacostia short lines become partners in EPA SmartWay program

Black locomotives with white zebra striping

CHICAGO — Anacostia Rail Holding’s six short lines have become certified partners of the Environmental Protection Agency SmartWay Transportation Partnership, a collaboration between industry and environmental groups to track and reduce emissions and fuel use in the transportation sector. The more than 3,000 partners in the program, which launched in 2004, including railroads, trucking, air, […]

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