The engineer of a Gulf, Mobile & Ohio RS1 eyes the photographer as his locomotive clatters across the Rock Island diamonds at Joliet, Ill., in 1951. The Alco and a caboose are bound for GM&O’s South Joliet yard. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Section: Photos and Videos
Inside GN’s 1951 Empire Builder
The 1951 edition of Great Northern’s flagship train, which the road called the Mid-Century Empire Builder at the time, included a 60-seat coach for short-haul passengers. GN photo […]
Last duty for a PRR Mikado
In September 1955, workers at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Renovo (Pa.) engine terminal prepare L1s 2-8-2 No. 8426 for service as a stationary steam supply at the road’s giant Sunnyside Yard in New York City. The Mike has been converted to oil-firing for this duty, most likely its last assignment. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Big Sky local
Pacific 2119 leads Northern Pacific train 288 east in Silver Bow Canyon, a dozen miles west of Butte, Mont., in the late 1940s. Linn H. Westcott photo […]
NYC’s Commodore Vanderbilt Hudson
New York Central class J-1e 4-6-4 No. 5344 received sheet-metal shrouding in 1934, making it the first streamlined steam locomotive in America. Carl F. Kantola of NYC’s equipment engineering department created the design. The Hudson was named Commodore Vanderbilt after the NYC’s famous early leader, but initially displayed no road number. Glenn Grabill photo […]
Three major NYC yards
Selkirk Yard near Albany, N.Y. New York Central Cornerstone of New York Central’s $25 million “Castleton Cutoff” improvement project, Selkirk opened on November 20, 1924. Central’s objective was to bypass congestion at Albany, where two Hudson River drawbridges and the “Water Level Route’s” one big bump, the 1.75 percent West Albany grade between the Hudson […]
Jacksonville Terminal in the 1940s
Headhouse and platforms Jacksonville Terminal Co. Jacksonville Terminal was a monument to Florida’s status as the southern vacation destination of choice for the eastern half of the U.S. Few travelers got off here; instead, the city was the funnel for trains arriving over the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, and Southern Railway on their […]
PRR E8 exits a tunnel
Pennsylvania Railroad E8 No. 5795 leads train 32, the New York–bound St. Louisan, out of one of the twin tunnels at Spruce Creek, Pa., in the mid-1950s. Don Wood photo […]
Montreal circa 1952
CP’s St. Luc Yard roundhouse Walter R. Allen for CPR Canadian Pacific in July 1950 opened its sprawling new St. Luc Yard in the “wilds” above the cities of Lachine and Cote St. Luc, Quebec. Built to relieve congestion at CPR’s Hochelaga and Outremont Yards in Montreal, St. Luc included this 37-stall roundhouse, completed in […]
On the waterfront
DL&W’s Hoboken Terminal Fred W. Schneider III Opened on February 25, 1907, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western’s Hoboken (N.J.) Terminal replaced an earlier facility on the site destroyed by fire in 1905. The new terminal featured 16 tracks and 6 ferry slips along the Hudson River across from New York City. Catenary came to the […]
WM 44-tonner
Western Maryland 76, one of two GE 44-tonners the road had, both built in 1943, does some switching at WM’s Hillen Street terminal in Baltimore in July 1948. H. A. McBride photo […]
Streamliners at Spencer event, 2014
See this photo gallery of streamlined locomotives that dazzled crowds at the North Carolina Transportation Museum complex in Spencer, N.C., in Summer 2014. This is a modified version of the photo gallery that first appeared on Classic Trains‘ website. […]