The superb Owl and its unique route in SP history

Southern Pacific train 26, the southbound Owl, stops at Glendale, Calif., with 4-8-8-2 No. 4116 on point. H. Sullivan photo

  Almost every railroad has its “other” passenger train. You know, the lesser known one usually received far less press. The one that deviated here and there from the timetable of the premier train that plied the route.   Thumb through a company history and you soon realize Southern Pacific had lots of them. Almost […]

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Wabash Railway passenger trains remembered

A black and white photo of a train on the tracks

Wabash Railway passenger trains: All through January 2024, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the history and heritage of the Wabash.     Please enjoy this photo gallery of Wabash Railway passenger trains, originally published online in May 2019. […]

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Northwestern Pacific passenger train

20190117

Thirty miles into its overnight run from Eureka, Calif., to San Rafael on San Francisco Bay, Northwestern Pacific train 3 picks its way along a trestle at the base of Scotia Bluff on June 20, 1953, three months before the end of steam on the Southern Pacific subsidiary. Richard C. Brown photo […]

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Motor car through Georgia

20190114

Seaboard Air Line motor car 2027 (St. Louis Car/Electro-Motive, 1936) leads Savannah, Ga.–Montgomery, Ala., local train 11 near Rochelle, Ga., in 1947. The RPO apartment is part of the motor, and the REA express messenger gets some air in the open door of his car. David W. Salter photo […]

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Milwaukee Road FM H10-44

20190103

Milwaukee Road Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 shows the high (cab-roof-level) hood needed to clear FM’s tall opposed-piston engine. The roof overhang on the back of the cab was a feature on H10-44s and early H12-44s. Milwaukee Road photo […]

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Mikado on Oahu

20190108

Oahu Railway 2-8-2 No. 70, a 1927 Alco, leads a train for Kahaku beside the Pacific Ocean east of Kaena Point in the 1940s. The railroad’s C-shaped main line extended from Honolulu on the south side of the island clockwise to Kahuku on the north side. Kent W. Cochrane photo […]

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Locomotives for Cincinnati Union Terminal

20190102

E units belonging to Louisville & Nashville, Chesapeake & Ohio, New York Central, and Pennsylvania idle on the ready tracks near the Cincinnati Union Terminal roundhouse in September 1952. Baltimore & Ohio, CUT, Norfolk & Western, and C&O steam engines populate the whisker tracks in the background. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]

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CSX’s eighth heritage locomotive honors the New York Central

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – CSX’s eighth heritage locomotive is a salute to the New York Central. The ES44AH, which carries No. 1853 for the Central’s founding year, made its debut today. It took the Waycross, Ga., paint shop crew 22 days to adorn the locomotive with the Central’s classic lightning stripe scheme. The New York Central […]

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Calmed South Wind

20190121

Louisville & Nashville 4-6-2 No 295 stands at Winchester, Ky., with local train 3 for Hazard on May 3, 1952. Built in 1925 with three cylinders, the Pacific lost its middle cylinder and gained a big tender and some decorative sheet metal in 1940 to pull the Louisville–Montgomery, Ala., leg of the Chicago–Miami South Wind streamliner. Ed […]

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Wabash Railway history remembered

Blue-and-gray diesel locomotive on freight train of Wabash Railroad history

Wabash Railway history started with the Northern Cross, the first railroad in Illinois, in 1837.   The term “Fallen Flag” first appeared in Trains in 1974, as the title for a series of thumbnail histories of merged-away railroads. The series began with the Wabash, and employed the road’s flag emblem outline to illustrate the series’ […]

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Burly PRR Ten-Wheeler

20190128

Pennsylvania Railroad 5711 was one of 121 class G5s 4-6-0s the road’s Juniata Shops in Altoona, Pa., built in the 1920s. Designed for commuter and secondary passenger work, 90 of the heavy Ten-Wheelers worked on PRR’s own lines, while 31 were for subsidiary Long Island Rail Road. Harold K. Vollrath photo […]

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2-8-8-2 on Tennessee Pass

20190104

Rio Grande 2-8-8-2 3601 exits Deen Tunnel east of Pando, Colo., with an eastbound freight extra in March 1946. On the valley floor beyond is the Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s Camp Hale. R. H. Kindig photo […]

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