Reading Pacific on the PRSL

20151210

Characteristic of the indignities suffered by steam in its final years, Reading G-3 Pacific 215, built in 1948 as a top-flight passenger engine, loafs along with a single coach on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Quiet Sunday on the DT&I

20151202

Mikados, an 0-8-0, and an ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Consolidation are arrayed around the turntable at Detroit, Toledo & Ironton’s Flat Rock Yard near Detroit on the day before Labor Day, 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Icing the reefers on the CB&Q

20151216

A worker shovels salt into a reefer via a rolling chute at the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s icing dock in Denver in 1949. The conveyor chain on the platform at right carries block ice along the platform. Earl Cochran photo […]

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Dallas interlocking tower

20151222

An interior view at Tower 19 near Dallas (Texas) Union Terminal shows the track diagram (“model board”) of the territory controlled by the tower and some of the levers that controlled the switches and signals. This is an electro-pneumatic interlocking, in which switches are operated by compressed air. Historic American Engineering Record photo […]

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Water standpipe

20151019

This is a typical standpipe (also called water crane, water column, or water plug) used to fill steam locomotive tenders with water, which is supplied by pipe from a tank. A single tank might supply several standpipes. When not in use, they were swung away from the track. The bucket-like object between the end of […]

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