Story City service

20200206

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 […]

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Main Street of the Northwest

20200226

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 […]

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Mill town terminal

20200219

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 […]

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Minute Man maroon

20200205

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 […]

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Muscatine memory

20200217

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 […]

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New Haven novelty

20200210

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 […]

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Big Easy’s big terminal

20200207

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 […]

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BN’s big muscle

20200214

Four Burlington Northern SD45s, led by No. 6536, power a westbound freight through the shadows of grain elevators at Des Lacs, N.Dak., in November 1973. The railroad rostered 222 such locomotives inherited from Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and St. Louis-San Francisco. John M. Robinson Jr. photo […]

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Gravity assisted railroading

20200220

A Chesapeake & Ohio Mallet starts downgrade for Barrett, W.Va., with loads from Eastern Gas & Fuel’s Wharton No. 2 mine in June 1955. Trains’ Editor David P. Morgan tracked two cars from mine to Tidewater in the April 1956 issue. W.A. Akin Jr. photo […]

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Highballing Hudson

20200224

New York Central J-1 Hudson No. 5403 accelerates west at Mattoon, Ill., with an express train for St. Louis in September 1954. When built in in 1927, the Central was given to throwing up marble monuments of stations, running seven-section Centurys, and paying 8-percent dividends. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Bethlehem bound

20200221

Ore train ZBB exits Black Rock Tunnel and crosses the Schuylkill River in Phoenixville, Pa., on March 9, 1984, with SD60 No. 6702 leading. Conrail hauled ore 110 miles from Philadelphia’s Greenwich Point Pier to Bethlehem Steel’s namesake city. Robert Palmer photo […]

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MRVP Insider: Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show 2020

Amherst Railway Society 2020 show

What could you have seen at the annual (all scales) Railroad Hobby Show held in Springfield, Massachusetts, on January 25-26, 2020? Follow along as MR associate editor Eric White shares his walk-and-talk tour of the various buildings of the Eastern States Expo Fairgrounds, each housing all sorts of vendors, displays, layouts, and so much more! […]

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