Host Drew Halverson, along with KJ and Mike, found themselves far north of the U.S.-Canada border, right in the thick of the rugged Canadian Rockies! For their wildest adventure yet, Drew and The Crew teamed up with local sherpas for exhilarating explorations up, down, and all around Canadian National’s Yellowhead Pass. Don’t miss the full […]
Gulf, Mobile & Ohio F3 883-A leads the road’s weekday commuter train to Joliet away from Chicago Union Station not long before GM&O merged with Illinois Central to form Illinois Central Gulf. The little train was widely known as “The Plug.” John R. Taibi photo […]
Amtrak’s ‘Empire Builder’ streaks through Brookfield, Wis. The speed limit for Amtrak on Canadian Pacific’s Watertown Subdivision is 79 mph. Tom Danneman Q Most Amtrak trains have a 79-mph speed limit. Will positive train control systems allow Amtrak to operate faster where track conditions allow? For instance, the Southwest Chief operates to 90 mph in […]
Greasy rails on Missouri Pacific’s Kirkwood Hill west of St. Louis have brought 2-10-2 helper No. 1716 and 4-8-4 road engine No. 2111 to a halt in March 1946. The train got moving again with an assist from an 0-8-0. Joe Collias photo […]
Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 6317 approaches South Bend (Ind.) Union Station with a westbound freight in April 1948. A dozen years later, GTW would become one of the final Class I railroads to use steam power. Andrew Corsini photo […]
Chicago & North Western class D 4-4-2 395 and 4-6-2 647 head west through a cut at Wales, Wis., with an excursion train on a triangular Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–Chicago routing in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
The Lima Locomotive Works plant in Lima, Ohio, birthplace of hundreds of advanced “Super-Power” steam locomotives, occupied a triangular site on the city’s south side between B&O and Nickel Plate lines. Classic Trains coll. […]
Follow former Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261 as it pulls employee and public trips on the Red River Valley & Western. The June 2017 trips commemorate the North Dakota regional railroad’s 30th anniversary. […]
GG1 4903 heads a westbound rush-hour commuter train at Swarthmore, Pa., sometime during World War II. A mainline motor like this was a rarity on PRR’s West Chester Branch. George Gillespie As were many railroads during the busy World War II years, the Pennsylvania Railroad was hard-pressed for equipment. Many of us remember seeing locomotives and […]
On May 23, 1996, Santa Fe train P-CHLA1-21, a 5,338-ton, 7,133-foot train, at Supai Summit in northern Arizona. John C. Lucas Have you read Fred W. Frailey’s October 2017 “Commentary,” “24 hours at Supai Summit?” He spills all of the details of a 1996 visit to Kaibab National Forest 4 miles east of Williams, Ariz., […]
2-6-6-2 Mallet No. 250 of the 3-foot-gauge Sumpter Valley Railway in northeast Oregon rolls a train of lumber toward the Union Pacific interchange at Baker, Ore., in 1946. The SV was abandoned in 1948, but a portion has been revived as a museum and tourist railway. Henry R. Griffiths photo […]
Louisville & Nashville adopted Alcos by the 1950s on lines in eastern Kentucky. The railroad first painted RS3s, FA2s, and FB2s in black, cream, and orange, but later opted for simpler schemes. R.D. Sharpless, Louisville & Nashville Historical Society collection Q My family moved from Texas to southeastern Kentucky in the mid-1950s, and I remember […]
