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Magazine: Classic Trains
BL2s and Pullmans to the Stock Yards
A pair of Rock Island BL2s, with an F7B between them, led the “Fat Stock Special” one night in 1956. Monty Powell In November 1956 I was a management trainee on the Rock Island Railroad in Rock Island, Ill. A special movement known as “the Fat Stock Special,” which originated in western Iowa, was coming […]
Mountain Railroads
Also in this issue: Mountain Railroads in Photos, pg. 16 SP’s Tehachapi Pass and Cuesta Grade Mountain Railroads in Photos, pg. 28 Milwaukee’s Pacific Extension; NP’s Mullan Pass Tennessee Narrow Gauge, pg. 30 4-percent grades, 32-degree curves, and trim 4-6-0s on the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Mountain Railroads in Photos, pg. 36 Maine […]
A doubleheader to dance about
“Glory!” Doubleheaded Southern Railway Ps-4’s depart Charlottesville, Va., with an Atlanta-bound train in 1951. I. W. King My father, I. W. King, grew up in Greenville, S.C., where his father, I. E. King, was a telegraph operator for the Southern Railway. Like most railroad families, they often used the employee pass to visit relatives. Many […]
NKP Berkshire at Bellevue
In September 1955, Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 774 moves through the yard at Bellevue, Ohio, as a Fairbanks-Morse diesel switcher works in the background. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Belt Railway C424s
Alco built a total of 190 Century 424 road-switchers during 1963–67. Nearly half went to Canada, and a quarter to Mexico. Of the 53 built for U.S. customers, 6 were for the Belt Railway of Chicago, which used them until 1999. Harold A. Edmonson photo […]
Three-way race on the B&M
Just out of Boston’s North Station, three Boston & Maine trains have crossed the Charles River drawbridges and approach the Charlestown Avenue bridge in mid-1947. From left: a 4-6-2 with a beach special, an E7 with the Alouette for Montreal via Canadian Pacific, and another 4-6-2 on the Boston section of the Green Mountain Flyer, bound for […]
UP 2-10-2 on the run
The 2-10-2 Santa Fe type wasn’t generally known for speed, but Union Pacific 5015 looks like a real racehorse heading west across Nebraska with empty reefers in the late 1940s. Linn W. Westcott photo […]
UP Challenger type
Union Pacific introduced the 4-6-6-4 Challenger type in 1936 when it received 15 engines from Alco. UP eventually owned 105 of the 252 4-6-6-4s produced; No. 3937 is from the road’s final order, delivered in 1944. Art Stensvad photo […]
Waiting at Chicago Union Statio
A Milwaukee Road trainman peers down the dimly lighted platforms of Chicago Union Station for any late-arriving passengers as the Arrow prepares to depart the Windy City for Iowa points in 1964. John Gruber photo […]
Pittsburg & Shawmut coal train
Three yellow-and-red SW9s move a cut of hopper cars out of the coal-cleaning plant at Ringgold, Pa. in the mid-1950s. P&S, a 100-mile line between Freeport and Brockway, Pa., dieselized in 1953 with nine SW9s. Richard J. Cook photo […]
Rush hour on the Erie
Pacifics of three different classes are poised to depart the Erie’s Jersey City passenger terminal with outbound commuter trains at 5:27 p.m. on June 26, 1951. Ed Theisinger photo […]
