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 […]
Northern Pacific L-9 class 0-6-0s 1082 and 1126 pause between work at Aberdeen, Wash., on a rare sunny day in 1954. Logs, lumber, sawmills, and shake mills dominate the economy here and in nearby Hoquiam, keeping several switch jobs busy. S-4 class 4-6-0s also toiled here. Tom Miller, Stephen Thompson collection […]
Surrounded by the new wave of motive power, a Boston & Maine worker rests at Boston’s Charlestown engine terminal in May 1952. E7 3818, a Budd RDC3, and Alco RS3 1515 and siblings at right can ignore the steam locomotive facilities, all but obsolete by now. B&M’s “Minute Man” emblem dated from 1945. Frank and […]
Culver Tower in Muscatine, Iowa, guarded the junction of Milwaukee Road and Rock Island main lines on the southwest side of town. From there trains operated on joint Milwaukee-Rock Island trackage to the Quad Cities. The tower, shown in 1950, closed in November 1977. Robert Lawler photo […]
The New Haven was a pioneer in hauling common-carrier trailers. Here, a solid cut of piggyback cars passes Cos Cob, Conn., en route from Boston to New York City in the late 1950s. Jim Shaughnessy photo […]
The plaza for newly minted New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal remains unfinished in this 1954 view. Previously, the site was occupied by the former Union Station. In the distance, past the Claiborne Avenue overpass, is the NOUPT coach yard and diesel shop. Leon Trice photo […]
