Amtrak E60CH 966 on the Washington-bound Murray Hill has become disabled just south of Bowie, Md., on March 26, 1976. Sent out to rescue the one-year-old motor is Penn Central GG1 4885 — a 37-year veteran of the Northeast Corridor. Ray Brubacker photo […]
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Santa Fe’s Barstow Yard
An early-1904s view of the Santa Fe’s big freight yard at Barstow, Calif., shows, at the left side of the photo, war materiel on flatcars. Santa Fe photo […]
Western corner of the B&O
Consolidation 2836 steams across a country road at Junction, Ill., with the every-other-day freight between Flora and Shawneetown in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Classic logging Mallet
The 2-6-6-2T Mallet, exemplified by Weyerhauser No. 9, was perhaps the ultimate development of the logging locomotive. Compact, powerful, and flexible, the type was ideally suited to pulling heavy loads over rough, sharply curved track. Geared locomotives like the Shay also possessed these traits, but could not make the speed of a rod engine. Baldwin […]
Early SP intermodal train
An A-B-A set of F units departs San Francisco with Southern Pacific train 372, the piggyback-heavy Advance Overnight for Los Angeles, in August 1955. William Harry photo […]
B&O “Dockside” 0-4-0T
Baltimore & Ohio No. 9 is one of four class C-16 0-4-0T switchers built in 1912 to work tight-radius street trackage along Baltimore harbor. Two were rebuilt as tender engines in the 1920s, but the other two worked as-built until several years after World War II. Their compact size made them a favorite among HO […]
Rock Island 4-8-4 at Joliet
Rock Island class R-67 Northern 5114 has just passed Joliet (Ill.) Union Station and crossed the GM&O/ATSF diamond as it steams toward Chicago with an eastbound freight in fall 1951. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Reading Pacific on the PRSL
Characteristic of the indignities suffered by steam in its final years, Reading G-3 Pacific 215, built in 1948 as a top-flight passenger engine, loafs along with a single coach on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Quiet Sunday on the DT&I
Mikados, an 0-8-0, and an ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Consolidation are arrayed around the turntable at Detroit, Toledo & Ironton’s Flat Rock Yard near Detroit on the day before Labor Day, 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Reading Co. Camelback Ten-Wheeler
As a crossing watchman stands guard, Reading Camelback 4-6-0 No. 608 brings a Newtown, Pa.–Philadelphia local into Fox Chase station in 1948. Leslie R. Ross photo […]
Icing the reefers on the CB&Q
A worker shovels salt into a reefer via a rolling chute at the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s icing dock in Denver in 1949. The conveyor chain on the platform at right carries block ice along the platform. Earl Cochran photo […]
Dallas interlocking tower
An interior view at Tower 19 near Dallas (Texas) Union Terminal shows the track diagram (“model board”) of the territory controlled by the tower and some of the levers that controlled the switches and signals. This is an electro-pneumatic interlocking, in which switches are operated by compressed air. Historic American Engineering Record photo […]