Sandpoint, Idaho, is near Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced “pond oray”) in Idaho’s Panhandle. Sandpoint features the main line of BNSF’s Kootenai River Subdivision, the busy northern transcontinental route, as well as Union Pacific’s Spokane Subdivision from Eastport, Idaho. UP trains to and from Eastport use trackage rights on BNSF’s Newport Subdivision from North Sandpoint (where […]
Woodstock is a city of 38,000 in southwestern Ontario, located between Hamilton and London. The city promotes itself as “The Friendly City” and is known as the Dairy Capital of Canada. Woodstock is the seat of Oxford County and is a center of automotive manufacturing. Both Canadian National and Canadian Pacific own track through Woodstock, […]
Locust Grove is a city of 5,600 about 35 miles south of Atlanta, located just off Interstate 75 for easy access. It is situated along the Norfolk Southern Atlanta South District, which runs from Atlanta to Macon. The line was completed in 1882 as part of the East Tennessee, Virginia, & Georgia Railroad to connect […]
Although Marias Pass is among the lowest railroad crossings of the Continental Divide in the United States at 5,213 feet, nothing is small about BNSF Railway’s route through northwest Montana. Built by James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway in the 1890s, the line across Marias Pass remains a critical transcontinental route to the Pacific Northwest […]
Marion, Ohio, is a post-industrial Rust Belt city that is famous for the Marion Power Shovel Co., one-time supplier of heavy-duty industrial machinery to the world. Because of its industrial prowess, four major railroads once served the city of 35,000: Chesapeake & Ohio, Erie, New York Central, and Pennsylvania. This variety and density lead to […]
California is known throughout the country for its passenger trains — and its traffic jams. The city of Martinez is the perfect location to get away for a day on Amtrak, with 42 daily passenger trains scheduled to stop on weekdays. Those trains connect Martinez to Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, and many other cities within […]
In Redding, Calif., California Highway 273 (old Hwy. 99) lets you follow the action on Union Pacific Railroad’s north-south I-5 corridor. The former Southern Pacific main line through the area is now part of UP’s Valley Subdivision, from Dunsmuir at milepost 321.4 to East Roseville at milepost 106.4. Photographers will love the climate: Redding has […]
Today’s Roosevelt Road is a wonderful place to watch passenger trains. More than 1,000 trains a day from Amtrak, Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and South Shore cross the busy thoroughfare. The area provides a safe venue for watching and photographing trains in an urban environment. TRAIN WATCHING Roosevelt Road offers overhead views of three rail […]
Glendale, Ohio, incorporated in 1855, is a north suburb of Cincinnati. The community is located along CSX Transportation’s Cincinnati Terminal Subdivision, which also hosts trains from Amtrak and Norfolk Southern. The Cincinnati & Hamilton Railroad opened a line between its namesake Ohio cities in 1848. The railroad, renamed the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, leased the […]
Hamlet, N.C., sits at a critical CSX junction, the hub of the former Seaboard Air Line Railway. To the north runs the Aberdeen Subdivision to Raleigh. (The stub-ended route continues north to Norlina, and once went to Petersburg, Va.) The Hamlet Subdivision extends south toward Columbia, S.C., and beyond to Charleston, S.C., and Florida. The […]
Located 45 miles southwest of the Chicago Loop, Joliet is a city of 147,000, the fourth largest in Illinois. Just as much of the former Santa Fe Railway accompanies the former Route 66 across the Southwest, the two pair up briefly in Joliet — now as BNSF Railway and Illinois Route 53. TRAIN WATCHING For […]
La Crosse, Wis., is a city of 51,000 people located about 150 miles southeast of Minneapolis, Minn. The city was once home to the G. Heileman Brewing Co., maker of Old Style beer. For a city its size, there is a remarkable variety of railroading, with scenery to boot. Train-watchers frequently see motive power of […]
