CN 2-8-0 in the rain

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In a 1957 view from a crossing watchman’s tower at Burlington, Ont., elderly Canadian National 2-8-0 2647 passes in heavy rain with a Hamilton–Toronto local freight. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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History According to Hediger: Anchors not aweigh!

Large boat on water

Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page In this encore appearance, Model Railroader magazine’s retired senior editor Jim Hediger pops back into the MRVP studio to re-tell a story about Ann Arbor Railroad’s Viking car ferry concluding one particular trip across Lake Michigan. Related Topics: railfan […]

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Lackawanna’s great Pequest Fill

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A 4-8-4 leads a freight east across the Lackawanna Railroad’s colossal Pequest Fill. At more than 3 miles long, Pequest was a major feature of the road’s 28.5-mile cutoff across the rough terrain of northern New Jersey. The line below is the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]

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Muskogee memories

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Heavy Mikado of the Muskogee Group poses on the turntable at Muskogee, Okla., in August 1950. Joe Collias photo In the early 1950s, a friend and I traveled extensively in an attempt to photograph as many steam locomotives as possible before their impending destruction by dieselization. On one expedition, we chose a corner of Oklahoma […]

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Retail railroading

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In a scene far removed from today’s unit and intermodal trains, a small boy watches as a shipment is loaded aboard the Union Transportation Co.’s daily train at New Egypt, N.J., in September 1958. The short line used locomotives and cabin cars leased from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Aaron G. Fryer photo […]

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PRR’s first passenger diesel

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Pennsylvania E7A 5901, one of the units constituting the big road’s first passenger diesel, teams up with an E7B and another E7A on a “Blue Ribbon” limited departing Chicago. This historic unit is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. PRR photo […]

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The mums

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A railfan went to Eureka, Calif., to see SD9s, but it’s the flowers at a memorial that made an impression. David Lustig photo It was the lure of the machinery that first attracted me to trains. But technology is nothing without people to operate it, and I suppose it’s a side effect of the aging […]

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Map of Glenita, Va., and environs

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Because of a production error with our Spring 2016 issue, the map that should have accompanied the article “Calamity at Glenita” — about a 1968 coal train derailment on the Southern Railway — was omitted from the magazine. Here is the map. […]

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GG1 to the rescue

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Amtrak E60CH 966 on the Washington-bound Murray Hill has become disabled just south of Bowie, Md., on March 26, 1976. Sent out to rescue the one-year-old motor is Penn Central GG1 4885 — a 37-year veteran of the Northeast Corridor. Ray Brubacker photo […]

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