Running as the Red Devil to Columbus, Cincinnati & Lake Erie “Red Devil” car 125 pauses to receive passengers at Osborn, Ohio, on August 2, 1936. C&LE was 270 miles at its 1930 creation by merger; it was all but gone by 1940. George Krambles photo […]
Section: Railroads
Photo of the Day
This 40-foot Canadian National boxcar was built in November 1923 and was still in service in the 1970s. The car is single-sheathed (meaning sheathed only on the inside of the truss-style metal bracing) and has wood sides and ends. Note the modern AEI panel on the 1923-built car. Michael Dean photo […]
C&O Allegheny 1624
Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-6 1624 has cut off from its eastbound coal train to take sand, coal, and water at Thurmond, W.Va., in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
F7s in Glenwood Canyon
Five Denver & Rio Grande Western F7 diesels roll a westbound freight through scenic Glenwood Canyon between Dotsero and Glenwood Springs, Colo., in April 1965. Classic Trains coll. […]
Fighting snow on the Rio Grande narrow gauge
Rio Grande rotary plow OY stands with 2-8-2 494 at Osier, Colo., on January 4, 1952, during one of the worst winters to hit the D&RGW narrow gauge. John Norwood photo […]
0-4-0T in New Hampshire
Franconia Paper Co. 0-4-0T No. 3, built by Porter in 1917 for the Watertown (Mass.) Arsenal, putters about the paper company’s plant at Lincoln, N.H., in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Brand-new Cincinnati Union Terminal
This northward view shows the sprawling Cincinnati Union Terminal complex not long before it was put into service in March 1933. Besides the landmark half-dome headhouse, the terminal included 15 platform tracks, a 26-track coach yard, and 20-stall roundhouse. Classic Trains coll. […]
Classy piggyback power
Displaced from more glamorous duties by the decline in passenger service, three Erie Lackawanna PAs lead a westbound piggyback train through Pullman Junction (Chicago) en route to New York in July 1963. Jim Wozniczka photo […]
City of San Francisco consists
See sample consists of the Overland Route’s City of San Francisco from 1936, 1939, 1947, and 1955. Download the information by clicking here. […]
Low-level platforms
A track-level platform at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport station near Baltimore enables the use of the middle track, at bottom, for passenger boarding and detraining. Note the yellow step box behind the railing, for use with the lower platforms. Brian Schmidt Q I live near Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and see short track-level platform extensions at […]
When the train left, the fun paled
Central of Georgia’s 500-series Consolidations possessed good lines accented by interesting detail: visored headlight, capped stack, serif numerals, striped sandbox, generous cab. Classic Trains collection An alligator crosshead moving back and forth on its greased guides to the dictates of a hot piston rod; the hurried, hollow sighs up the stack as a pair of […]
Prototype drawings of Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive
Click on the image or link to download a PDF of this drawing of the Union Pacific Big Boy In 1941 the Union Pacific RR took delivery of its first 4-8-8-4 single-expansion articulated steam locomotives. Aptly named “Big Boy,” these 7,000 hp, 386-ton locomotives were the heaviest and among the most powerful simple articulateds ever […]