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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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