Illinois Terminal GP38-2 No. 2004 leads two sisters and a Conrail GP38-2 at Granite City, Ill., in August 1980. The IT units display the road’s final scheme, applied in the years prior to the 1982 Norfolk & Western takeover. Paul H. Dalman, J. David Ingles collection […]
In Grande style
The Denver & Rio Grande Western, symbol of so much of Colorado railroading, had nowhere else to go for traffic. After laying tracks in search of gold and silver, it was coal that made the road. A westbound freight appropriately heads up Coal Creek Canyon west of Denver on the Front Range in 1972. Ron […]
Local lesson
Milwaukee Road’s Viroqua Patrol, with an Alco RSD5 in charge, crosses the Burlington Northern’s ex-Chicago, Burlington & Quincy main line at Grande Crossing in La Crosse, Wis., on Oct. 9, 1971. “Patrol” was the Milwaukee’s name for a local freight and Viroqua was a town on a branch located southeast of La Crosse. J. W. […]
Circus style
Trailers were loaded and unloaded at mid-century “circus style” by means of a ramp at the end of a track and retractable bridge plates between cars. Here, a Southern Pacific trailer moves along a string of flatcars. Robert Hale photo […]
Classic railway preservation
Colorado Railroad Museum founder Bob Richardson moves a three-way switch at the Narrow Gauge Museum south of Alamosa, Colo., in the mid-1950s. This was the initial gathering point for the collection before it moved to Golden in 1958. The Mears Junction sign is from the place where the Rio Grande’s Marshall Pass and Valley narrow […]
Double trouble
After doubling its train together at Clare Yard in Cincinnati, train 78 prepares to depart east for Portsmouth, Ohio, over the Peavine in December 1959. Doubling the train blocked the Pennsylvania’s main line diamond at Clare. Tom Smart, J. David Ingles collection […]
Remembering Pere Marquette locomotives
Classic Trains editors are celebrating the heritage, history, and lore of famed (and infamous) railroads. In April 2020, we celebrate the Pere Marquette Railway. Please enjoy a collection of locomotive images located in the David P. Morgan Library archives at Kalmbach Media that include the Pere Marquette’s iconic locomotives and classic scenic photos. You might […]
More Trains of the 1940s
CLASSIC TRAINS SPECIAL EDITION NO. 26 For so many Americans, the 1940s was a decade of emotional highs and lows, prosperity and privation, sacrifice and self- indulgence. A long, deep economic depression was only sluggishly lifting when Pearl Harbor thrust manufacturing into overdrive. Sixteen million men and women entered the armed forces during World War […]
Remembering Pere Marquette passenger trains
In April 2020, Classic Trains is celebrating the history, heritage, and splendor of the Pere Marquette Railway. Enjoy this photo gallery, originally published online in October 2017, as the perfect salute to the PM. Return each week for another salute to the railroad of the month! See what we did last week for the Pere […]
Classic Trains, Spring 2020
[…]
Remembering the Pere Marquette Railway
Two E7’s, just months old, stand outside the trainshed of Chicago’s Grand Central Station, ready to depart for PM’s hub of Grand Rapids, Michigan, with train 6, on June 21, 1947. Dave Wallace Chasing the spirit of the Pere Marquette When I first encountered the former Pere Marquette Railway as a boy in southwestern Michigan […]
Big town, no main lines
The Milwaukee Road was one of the big players in Sioux Falls. One of its hottest trains in the late 1940s was the daily-except-Sunday meat train to Chicago, seen passing a diesel switcher as it departs Sioux Falls. Mikado 508 carries an extra tender to reduce water stops. Henry J. McCord Growing up in an […]