To our family, the ultimate train was not the Broadway, the 20th Century, or the exalted Dominion that plied our home Canadian Pacific rails out of Toronto. For us, the train was CPR’s nameless workaday No. 25, leaving daily at 10:30 (reading as 9:30 in the days when timetables were printed in Standard Time regardless […]
Athearn Trains HO scale Electro-Motive Division SD70ACe and SD70M-2 diesel locomotives HO scale locomotives Electro-Motive Division SD70ACe and SD70M-2 diesel locomotives. SD70ACe: Union Pacific (Western Pacific heritage scheme, one road number). SD70M-2: Canadian National, Florida East Coast, and Norfolk Southern. Four road numbers each unless noted. Direct-current models, $189.98. With Digital Command Control and SoundTraxx […]
Canadian National coal train C77951 (Winniandy, Alta., to Vancover, B.C.) thunders through Jasper, Alta., on April 6, 2009. Both CN and competitor Canadian Pacific move high-grade metallurgical coal from western Canadian mines to the Vancover-area port of Roberts Bank for export. Tim Stevens photo […]
Southern Railway’s master mechanic-steam occupies the engineer’s seat of Tennessee Valley 630 during a 1980s excursion. Jim Wrinn ATLANTA – Bill Purdie, the beloved master mechanic for Southern Railway’s extensive steam locomotive excursions in the 1960s and 1970s, died yesterday evening. He was 95. Purdie joined Southern Railway as a helper in 1936 and progressed […]
Blackstone Models HOn3 class C-19 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotive (pre-production model shown) HO scale locomotives HOn3 class C-19 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotive. Denver & Rio Grande Western (four road numbers available, one in “Bumblebee” scheme) and Rio Grande Southern (one number). Pre-production model shown. Die-cast metal boiler, wire handrails, and magnetic knuckle couplers. Price and […]
Atlas Model Railroad Co. HO scale General Electric Dash 8-40B, 8-40BW and 8-32BWH diesel locomotives HO scale locomotives General Electric Dash 8-40B, 8-40BW and 8-32BWH diesel locomotives. Dash 8-40B: New paint schemes: CSX (YN3 paint scheme) and Seminole Gulf; new road numbers: BC Rail (three road numbers) and Southern Pacific. Dash 8-40BW: New paint schemes: […]
A supplement to the Classic Trains Online Look Back e-mail newsletter Looking as proud as ever, CN 4-8-4 6205 rides the turntable at London, Ont., in July 1959, headed for the ash pit, the dead line, and oblivion. Ken Kraemer photo By spring 1959, steam locomotives were just about gone from regular service on most […]
With a normal lens, the photographer takes a photo of the westward California Zephyr running through the Feather River Canyon in east-central California on the Western Pacific Railroad in summer 1968. Thomas Taylor With a normal lens, the photographer takes a shot of Operator Art Simmons putting his feet up at Canadian Pacific Railway’s West […]
An Amtrak special move, with private car Ohio River at the back, rolls along Canadian Pacific’s former Delaware & Hudson main line on Sept. 4, 2009. The train is on its way from Albany, N.Y., to Railfest 2009 in Scranton, Pa. Jim Conroy photo […]
Traffic density changes in the past 30 years on freight railroads’ main lines to Chicago reflect factors both geographic and corporate. Geographic factors include the shift of manufacturing from domestic to offshore; air quality regulations that closed high-sulfur Western mines; and general population and economic growth. Corporate factors include the desire of railroad managements to […]
The undeniable triumph of U.S. railroading can be seen in this graph of revenue ton-miles: the most basic unit of measurement (hauling one ton of freight one mile) for the work railroads perform. The data for this illustration come from the Association of American Railroads, and are confined to Class I railroads, the largest group […]
What will railroading look like 27 years from now? Will yards be jammed, main lines clogged, and trains backed up from terminals for 30 miles or more? Or will routes be fluid, with freights roaring by every 8 to 10 minutes on main lines three, four, and even six tracks wide? Either future could happen, […]
