Pennsylvania Railroad E8 5767 and a sister bring a westbound train to a halt at Canton, Ohio, in September 1952. Some of PRR’s E8s, like these, were delivered in PRR’s traditional dark green locomotive color with gold pinstripes; others came in Tuscan red, which the road adopted for passenger diesels in 1952. John B. Corns […]
Santa Fe on display
Santa Fe 4-6-4 3460, the road’s only streamlined steam engine, nicknamed the “Blue Goose,” stands next to an E1 diesel during a display of new trains at Dearborn Station, Chicago, in February 1938. Alexander Maxwell photo […]
Missabe “Mallet”
Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 2-8-8-4 No. 230 hauls an ore extra through Alborn, Minn., in 1959. Missabe men called all articulateds, compound as well as simple, “Mallets.” Franklin A. King photo […]
Minneapolis & St. Louis side-door caboose
The conductor of Minneapolis & St. Louis’ Story City, Iowa, mixed train looks out from the old hack’s side door at McCallsburg, Iowa, in the 1940s. William F. Armstrong photo […]
Mail on the fly!
The arm on a New York Central Railway Post Office car has just snatched the bag from the trackside crane. Incoming bags for such locations would simply be kicked out the door as the train passed. A. C. Kalmbach photo […]
Homefront supply line
Railroads were the primary means of moving men and materiel within the United States during World War II. Here a freight conductor walks beside flatcars loaded with M3 Lee tanks at an unknown location. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo […]
Photo of the Day
The Burlington Route created the first dome cars by modifying two coaches originally built by Budd in 1940. Silver Dome, pictured on display at Wichita Falls, Texas, was first, in 1945, followed by Silver Castle the next year. Wichita Times-Record News photo […]
Rock Island steam and stainless steel
In April 1948, a Rock Island 4-6-2 with an inbound commuter train approaches Englewood Union Station on Chicago’s South Side as the Peoria Rocket accelerates toward its namesake city. Bob Borcherding photo […]
Penn Station train announcements
Listen to train announcements at Pennsylvania Station, New York, recorded on November 11, 1963, from the archives of Semaphore Records, 202-255-4043. […]
Southern Pacific steam in action
Watch video clips of SP 2-10-2s, Daylight 4-8-4s, cab-forwards, and more from the Herron Rail Video program Glory Machines Vol. 1. […]
Katy freight house in Houston
Freight terminals had extensive docks for trucks on the nonrail side of the structure. This is the Missouri-Kansas-Texas freight station in Houston, Texas, in the 1940s. LeRoy Wilkie photo […]
End of two eras
Two E8As and an E7B lead NYC 26, the 20th Century Limited, eastbound at VIckers, Ohio, on a summer evening in 1966, the train’s last full year. William L. Gwyer This picture was just about the last railroad photo I took. It was the culmination of my photographic exploration of contemporary railroading in the early […]