At 1:45 p.m. on a sunny spring afternoon in 1955, the pace of activity at the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy depot in Brookfield, Mo., quickened. Due at 1:57 was train 36, the Chicago-bound Kansas City Zephyr — a streamliner led by two sliver E8’s. Automobiles began arriving and discharging passengers and their baggage. Station personnel […]
Subscription: Metered
SCL’s Red-Dot Couplers
It goes without saying that the smooth handling of Seaboard Coast Line’s Florida streamliners was a matter of personal pride for the line’s customarily well-tenured passenger engineers, and never more so than when an office car containing the railroad’s top brass was added to the consist. Even so, a road foreman of engines always rode […]
The Buffalo Switch
KAAABOOM! I woke in my roomette with a start as the car lurched forward a couple of feet. Caaaa-lank, clank, clunk! Then three violent jerks the other way. I didn’t have to look at my watch or raise the shade to know that cars were being cut from the train at Buffalo Central Terminal. I […]
Night in an Outfit Car
The silver bunk car marked “D&RGW” rests on the stockyard spur next to Cisco siding, windows open to the night breeze. Inside, the track-gang members lie sleeping on top of their blankets, the blistering head of the eastern Utah desert sun still lingering in the outfit. From the west comes the low whine of diesel […]
Rookie Fireman’s Friend
In the 1940’s, a rookie Southern Pacific locomotive fireman was always glad to see on the board that he had drawn duty on a 5000-series 4-10-2. In the years to come, the same fire-boy would probably fire all types of engines. He would be accepting engine assignments as they came, without a flicker of apprehension […]
That’s Railroading
In the winter of 1943, I was assigned to the firemen’s extra board at Des Moines Iowa, on the Rock Island’s Iowa Division. Because of a shortage of firemen I was called for a trip west to Council Bluffs with engineer Earl Beach. We had a good trip west to Council Bluffs. On the return […]
A Little Nervous Calculating
On the Norfolk & Western, when you qualified for passenger service as a fireman or engineer, the Road Forman of Engines’ office put a “p” by your name on the seniority roster. This told the world that you had the right to warm the appropriate seatbox on a locomotive on any passenger train on your […]
Rough Handling
My father, Richard Henderson, was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a shop clerk in the motive-power department at Toledo, Ohio, from 1901 through 1955. He told me the following story, and I will never forget it. During World War II, troop trains were given rights over virtually every other train on the road. Such […]
Classic Toy Trains 1996 annual index
CTT 1996 annual index […]
Big blue
Norfolk Southern SD40-2 No. 3410, a former Conrail unit, pauses while switching the yard at Binghamton, N.Y., on the night of Aug. 15, 2009. Photo by Thomas Mik […]
