Read about the California Zephyr‘s role in the 1955 widescreen movie Cinerama Holiday in “When Cinerama Rode the C.Z.,” an article from Classic Trains Special Edition No. 1, Dream Trains (2003). Download the story by clicking here. Watch the original remastered Cinerama Holiday trailer. Keep an eye out for the C.Z. at about 3 min […]
Train Topic: History
An accidental beginning
SP 4229, the cab-forward on which author Anderson was firing as the second engine of a doubleheader when lead engine 4208 threw a rod, hauls L.A.-bound freight 766 up Casamilia Hill on the Coast Line in 1947. Jim Morley As an 18-year-old kid going firing on Southern Pacific’s Coast Division in 1953, my life was […]
Railroading in Maine at 40 below zero
Five years after author Dow’s Bangor & Aroostook experience, in March 1955, a 103-car freight waits at snowy West Seboois, Maine, for a meet with the Aroostook Flyer. Allen A. Sharp The temperature on that February 1950 morning at Oakfield, Maine, was a savage 40 degrees below zero. The sky was clear, with little or […]
Author, traveler George H. Drury dies NEWSWIRE
Drury at work at Kalmbach. Kalmbach Publishing Co. MILWAUKEE – Author and former Kalmbach Publishing Co. employee George H. Drury died June 21 at age 73 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. A native of Reading, Mass., and lifelong rail enthusiast, Drury was working in San Francisco when he was hired as a copy […]
Video: History according to Hediger 7: A real railroading story from our senior editor
Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page Model Railroader Senior Editor Jim Hediger worked on the Wabash RR as a relief operator. Listen as Jim tells the story of how he learned not stand on the wrong side of the diamond when a freight train passed by. You’ll also see […]
Video: History according to Hediger 7: A real railroading story from our senior editor
Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page Model Railroader Senior Editor Jim Hediger worked on the Wabash RR as a relief operator. Listen as Jim tells the story of how he learned not stand on the wrong side of the diamond when a freight train passed by. You’ll also see […]
Policing the Olympian Hi
Models posed in the lounge of a Milwaukee Road Skytop sleeper-observation car appear to be better behaved than some of the soldiers who rode the Olympian Hiawatha after the Korean War. Milwaukee Road When the Korean conflict was halted by a truce in 1953, there was a rush to get most of our troops home. […]
A busy night at Hinton
In the Summer 2013 issue of Classic Trains, author Bob Withers recounts the special movement of passenger cars to Cass, W.Va., in late May 1968 on the occasion of the extension of the tourist pike to the top of Bald Knob. It was a complex operation involving scheduled and extra trains, as he explains here. […]
North Shore Line action
Watch color films of North Shore Line trains, excerpted from the DVD program The North Shore Brought to Life, produced by Sunday River Productions. […]
North Shore Line action
Watch color films of North Shore Line trains, excerpted from the DVD program The North Shore Brought to Life, produced by Sunday River Productions. […]
History According to Hediger: Painting brass locomotives
Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page When Jim Hediger was a young man, he worked in a hobby shop owned by noted railroad photographer, Emery Gulash. To help pay for college, Jim took on the job of painting brass locomotives for Emery, and he shares some of the stories […]
History According to Hediger: Painting brass locomotives
Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page When Jim Hediger was a young man, he worked in a hobby shop owned by noted railroad photographer, Emery Gulash. To help pay for college, Jim took on the job of painting brass locomotives for Emery, and he shares some of the stories […]