L&N FP7 on a local

20181008

Louisville & Nashville FP7 571 had not been long out of EMD’s plant at La Grange, Ill., when it breezed through London, Ky., with Cincinnati–Knoxville local No. 29 on May 25, 1952. Ed Theisinger photo […]

Read More…

Atlantic City-bound Atlantic

20181024

Pennsylvania Railroad E6s 4-4-2 759 stands on the upper level tracks at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, waiting to depart with a Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines train from Broad Street Station to Atlantic City in May 1937. E. Stanley Hart Jr. photo […]

Read More…

B&O’s modern Pittsburgh station

20181017

Baltimore & Ohio’s Grant Street Station on the north bank of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh opened in 1957 after a road project claimed the road’s grand 1888 depot nearby. B&O’s through trains had long since switched to the P&LE depot on the south side of the Mon. Green Street closed in 1989 with the […]

Read More…

Union stations

CSXAC60CWMarionOhiostation

A CSX Transportation freight passes Marion (Ohio) Union Station. The site is now a museum with a restored interlocking tower. Brian Schmidt Q Why is the word “Union” used so often in the names of passenger stations and terminals? For example, Cincinnati Union Terminal, St. Louis Union Station, or Denver Union Station. Is there a […]

Read More…

Tracks on the PGA Tour?

PW2215B408ProvidenceWorcesterThamesRiver

The Providence & Worcester operates in four Northeastern states. Here, train NR3 passes the Thames River in Preston, Conn., on Sept. 1, 2009. Robert A. LaMay Q I was watching a professional golf tournament being played in Cromwell, Conn., just south of Hartford. Who owns the rail line that passes between the 13th hole and […]

Read More…

A trip on the Erie

eriejerseycityviaduct

Two Erie trains, a doodlebug with a Stillwell coach and a Pacific with four Stillwells, climb the steel viaduct out of Jersey City before entering the “Bergen Arches.” Erie Railroad During the 1930s as I was growing up, my father worked for the Erie Railroad as a machinist. One of the perks of his railroad […]

Read More…

Wood-burning Prairie

20180925

The engineer oils the valve gear of Brooks-Scanlon Corp. No. 5, a cabbage-stacked, wood-burning 2-6-2 that hauled forest products in Florida. Note the antlers and candlesticks adorning the headlight. Frank Clodfelter photo […]

Read More…

Stored Great Northern power

20180917

Five “stored serviceable” steam locomotives occupy a track outside the Great Northern roundhouse at Kelly Lake, Minn., the home terminal for GN’s Minnesota iron-ore operations, in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

Read More…