Introducing the all-new Trains.com Forum! Become a part of our Community! >>VISIT NOW
What was your first byline in Trains? David Lustig: It was a photograph in the September 1964 issue of a new Southern Pacific EMD DD35 diesel in Los Angeles. I was 16 and armed with an Argus C3 camera. I took the picture, drove home, and developed and printed it. I was so excited when […]
A Clinchfield primer EMD hood units await calls to work at Dante, Va., on Oct. 13, 1980. Originally known as Turkey Foot, the town was renamed Dante in 1906. Shortly after, it became a busy center for coalfield railroading. Ron Flanary The earliest noises of building a railroad to connect Ohio with the Atlantic Ocean […]
The cab ride As the Production Editor for Trains Magazine, I got to participate in my very first cab ride, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway steam locomotive No. 1309, located at the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad this past fall. If I had to describe the experience in only one word, I’d have to say — […]
Sun Tan Special People in Santa Cruz, Calif., still talk about the Sun Tan Special, and not just as an artifact. The Sun Tan Special was Southern Pacific’s beach train in Northern California. It ran on summer weekends and holidays during the 1930s to the 1950s, from San Francisco and San Jose to the coastal […]
East Broad Top Railroad locomotives make up a big piece to a bigger puzzle that is the preserved narrow-gauge railroad in Rockhill, Pennsylvania. The 33-mile line served the iron furnaces and coal mines from 1874 until freight haulage came to an end on April 6, 1956. Tourist operations on a short section of the railroad […]
Mind-blowing dining car facts Dining by rail was transformed from a disgusting experience to a culinary calling card pitting one railroad against another to garner passengers. At the table, passengers enjoyed fine food served with the grace and style of the best restaurants. What we didn’t see was the world and culture of the dining […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Bob Johnston: “All passengers will make their connections” appeared in “Selected Railroad Reading” in the April 1989 issue. That article really began two years earlier, when an employee on the Chicago TV advertising sales team I managed gave me a notebook prior to a trip I took to […]
South Korea “Amfleet” passenger cars: The former Budd Company was well-known for its signature, corrugated stainless steel style when designing passenger cars. Just by a glance, it is usually easy to spot a Budd car. When Amtrak came on the scene, the Budd’s Metroliner was used as the basis for the Amfleet I and II […]
Mind-blowing Polar Express facts In 1985, illustrator and writer Chris Van Allsburg penned what has become a classic Christmas story — The Polar Express. Then 19 years later, 2004, film director Robert Zemeckis led a team to create the feature-length, animated version of the story centered around a most magical train and testing our “persuasion […]
North by Northwest North by Northwest is a true cinema classic and is considered one of the best of its genre. Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this American spy thriller film stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and the New York Central Railroad. It takes place in 1959 in Manhattan. The main […]
Dirt the Cat One of the world’s most famous cats is a railroader. Dirt, his fur coat stained by a lifetime amid the soot and grease of Nevada Northern Railway’s 114-year-old engine-servicing facility, is nobody’s pet and everybody’s friend. The people-loving shop cat has an international following thanks to a series of widely shared social […]
What was your first byline in Trains? I had a news photo of brand-new Southern Railway GE U30Cs in the April 1968 issue, but my first feature story, “Yes, I DID Want to Run a Railroad” appeared in the July 1978 issue. It was a completely unsolicited manuscript with no photos. I wanted to describe my […]
