Photo gallery: Amtrak’s Michigan Line track improvements

FULL SCREEN Ties await installation on the unused brick platform at Chelsea, Mich., east of Jackson. FULL SCREEN A Norfolk Southern tie gang finishes up for the day east of Chelsea. FULL SCREEN One mile further east, a tamper pushes gravel under and around newly installed ties at Chelsea, Mich. FULL SCREEN A laser beam […]

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Colorful variety

It’s a warm Oct., 1, 2013, morning as CSX train K931-01 is coming off the Plymouth Subdivision in its namesake Michigan city with 52 empty stone hopper cars from Lansing behind BNSF No. 4992. In the distance, CSX No. 2741 waits for open track. Photo by Chris Paciocco […]

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Great Photography in Bad Weather

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FULL SCREEN Mark Llanuza The headlights of an eastbound Metra train slice through the rain and heavy fog setting in over Elgin, Ill., in November of 2012. FULL SCREEN Mark Llanuza An early morning mix of rain and sleet greets commuters as they board a Metra train at the Bartlett, Ill., station in 2012. FULL […]

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Kansas City tonnage: 1971 and 2003

Kansas City tonnage

Chicago might have more trains, and St. Louis a big shiny arch, but Kansas City is the ton-mile king, with over 1 billion tons passing through the city (or above it, on flyovers) in 2003. That is 15 percent more tons than Chicago. What is remarkable about K.C. is its sheer growth, from 378 million […]

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Book Review: Norfolk & Western’s Clinch Valley Line

Norfolk & Western’s Clinch Valley Line by Ed Wolfe, Charles Wilson, Jr., and Paul Mandelkern HEW Enterprises, 116 Oakview Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 1521; 432 pages, 384 b/w and 48 color photos; hardcover, 8.5 x 11 in.; $65.00 Ed Wolfe has established himself as an outstanding researcher and writer in Appalachian railroad history with five different […]

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UP Big Boy No. 4014 will roll Jan. 26 NEWSWIRE

4014 January

Union Pacific moved No. 4014 across the fairgrounds in November in anticipation of January’s move from the park. Jim Wrinn POMONA, Calif. – The long awaited day when Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 will return to the national rail system is at hand. Mark Jan. 26 as a red letter day in the history […]

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Trains 2014 Photo Contest

1Jordan-Bellevue

Robert Jordan took this aerial image of Canadian Pacific train No. 270 at Bellevue, Iowa, and won grand prize for Trains 2012 photo contest. Trains‘ 2014 photo contest theme is “Sequence.” Sequential art can be traced back to cave drawings, and more recently in comic books. Well-known photographer Elliott Erwitt published a 2011 book called […]

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