Pacific Electric Red Cars in action

Red interurban electric car

Watch video clips of Pacific Electric Red Cars in action at Dominguez Junction and other locations on the Los Angeles–Long Beach line. Footage is from the DVD program Pacific Electric: Remembering the Red Cars, Vol. 1, available from Transit Gloria Mundi. […]

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Video: History according to Hediger 11

Train models in display case

Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page Season 2 of History according to Hediger will feature various items from the historical display cases at the Model Railroader offices. Senior editor Jim Hediger will share the background of these items. In this first episode you’ll learn about the red switcher of […]

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Happy “Kalmbach Day”!

20101027

From 1943 to 1989, Kalmbach Publishing Co. — whose family of magazines includes Model Railroader (launched 1934), Trains (1940), and Classic Trains (2000) — occupied this building at 1027 N. 7th Street in Milwaukee. The number “1027” has significance for generations of KPC customers. Classic Trains collection […]

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Santa Fe in three states

ATSF-Albuquerque-shops-BEV

The Santa Fe established a major shop complex at Albuquerque to maintain and repair steam locomotives. At their peak in 1940, the shops were one of the city’s largest employers, with 1787 workers. The shops declined as the Santa Fe dieselized, and, as the road’s last steam backshop, perfromed their final locomotive work in March […]

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The Railroad Capital through the Years

IC-Central-Sta-BEV

Illinois Central wasn’t the first railroad in Chicago, but it was one of 10 Class 1’s headquartered there and became arguably the most visible, thanks to its lakefront location. Its Romanesque Revival-style Central Station, built on fill in Lake Michigan for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, served IC plus New York Central’s Michigan Central and […]

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Key C&O facilities

CO-Raceland-shop-BEV

To handle maintenance and repairs on its substantial hopper-car fleet, coal-hauler Chesapeake & Ohio in 1930 built this systemwide freight-car shop at Raceland, Ky., at the west end of its massive Russell Yard, a facility built to classify coal cars moving west to Cincinnati and Chicago, as well as north to Lake Erie docks for […]

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East to West on the N&W

NW-Lamberts-Point-BEV

The Norfolk & Western Railway transported much of the coal mined in southwestern Virginia and West Virginia. Many loads went north to Lake Erie, others to “tidewater” at N&W’s big terminal in Norfolk, Va., opened in 1885. Here it was loaded in vessels for shipment to ports up the East Coast or for overseas export. […]

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Los Angeles in the 1930’s

SP-LA-GEnl-Shops-BEV

SP’s Los Angeles General Shops UCLA Dept. of Geography, Air Photo Archives Southern Pacific facilities dominate three views of Los Angeles. Much in this 1934 scene is gone, or greatly changed. SP’s Los Angeles General Shops, the most complete railroad maintenance facility the city has ever seen, was replaced by an intermodal yard in the […]

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Three depots of the South

ACL-Wilmington-hq-BEV

This 1940’s afternoon photo looks northeast from over the Cape Fear River across the north end of downtown Wilmington, N.C. (the ocean is 6 miles to the east). Atlantic Coast Line’s history in the port city dates to 1840, when the Wilmington & Raleigh opened a 161-mile line northwest to Weldon. After the Civil War […]

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Three key locations on the Old Reliable

LN-Corbin-eng-Tml-BEV

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad began by linking its namesake cities, and eventually grew to reach New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Atlanta. But Kentucky’s largest city was L&N’s home, heart, and headquarters, and the Bluegrass State’s top natural resource — coal — sustained the carrier that came to call itself “the Old Reliable.” In […]

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