Metra No. 108 with a loaded afternoon commuter train bears down on the photographer alongside the right-of-way near the Western Avenue depot in Chicago in September 2013. Photo by Steve Sweeney […]
Looking at you
Section: Photo of the Day
Steam on D&RGW’s ‘Yampa Valley Mail’
Pacific 801 climbs the Rio Grande’s Craig Branch with the Yampa Valley Mail sometime in the 1940s. The main line, which the train left at Bond, Colo., is far below in the distance. R.H. Kindig photo […]
Narrow gauge in Ohio
The Ohio River & Western was a 3-foot-gauge line in Ohio affiliated with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Folks have driven out in their cars to the road’s famous S-shaped trestle just west of Key, Ohio, to watch the OR&W’s last train on May 30, 1931. John B. Corns collection […]
PRR E8 diesels in green
Pennsylvania Railroad E8 5767 and a sister bring a westbound train to a halt at Canton, Ohio, in September 1952. Some of PRR’s E8s, like these, were delivered in PRR’s traditional dark green locomotive color with gold pinstripes; others came in Tuscan red, which the road adopted for passenger diesels in 1952. John B. Corns […]
Santa Fe on display
Santa Fe 4-6-4 3460, the road’s only streamlined steam engine, nicknamed the “Blue Goose,” stands next to an E1 diesel during a display of new trains at Dearborn Station, Chicago, in February 1938. Alexander Maxwell photo […]
Missabe “Mallet”
Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 2-8-8-4 No. 230 hauls an ore extra through Alborn, Minn., in 1959. Missabe men called all articulateds, compound as well as simple, “Mallets.” Franklin A. King photo […]
Minneapolis & St. Louis side-door caboose
The conductor of Minneapolis & St. Louis’ Story City, Iowa, mixed train looks out from the old hack’s side door at McCallsburg, Iowa, in the 1940s. William F. Armstrong photo […]
Mail on the fly!
The arm on a New York Central Railway Post Office car has just snatched the bag from the trackside crane. Incoming bags for such locations would simply be kicked out the door as the train passed. A. C. Kalmbach photo […]
Homefront supply line
Railroads were the primary means of moving men and materiel within the United States during World War II. Here a freight conductor walks beside flatcars loaded with M3 Lee tanks at an unknown location. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo […]
Photo of the Day
The Burlington Route created the first dome cars by modifying two coaches originally built by Budd in 1940. Silver Dome, pictured on display at Wichita Falls, Texas, was first, in 1945, followed by Silver Castle the next year. Wichita Times-Record News photo […]
The big picture
A westbound Union Pacific manifest freight works its way toward Los Angeles in October 2013 in the “Blue Cut” section of California’s famed Cajon Pass. With the lead locomotives a mile away in the distance, you gain a better perspective of magnitude of the San Gabriel Mountains and the challenges railroads overcame more than […]
Rock Island steam and stainless steel
In April 1948, a Rock Island 4-6-2 with an inbound commuter train approaches Englewood Union Station on Chicago’s South Side as the Peoria Rocket accelerates toward its namesake city. Bob Borcherding photo […]
