Close encounter with the B&OCT

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B&OCT 0-8-0 1703 hauls a string of cars from Grand Central Station, Chicago, to B&O’s Robey Street coachyard. Robert A. Caflisch In 1957 I was a 14-year-old, dismayed by the disappearance the previous year of the remaining Pacifics from commuter service on the Chicago & North Western through my hometown, Des Plaines, Ill. I knew […]

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Last ride north from Xenia

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PRR passenger service from Xenia north to Springfield, Ohio, — protected by an old gas-electric motor car — ended on July 21, 1953.  Harry V. Noble Xenia, my hometown in southwestern Ohio, was on the Pennsylvania’s Pittsburgh-St. Louis main line 16 miles east of Dayton. Xenia was also the base of a branch line north […]

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611: the video!

Norfolk & Western No. 611 is back in steam and Trains was there to capture every moment. See this preview video of a longer DVD we are creating to commemorate this historic return to glory for the greatest passenger steam locomotive ever built. Only from Trains! […]

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Learning the lingo at Flagstaff

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At Flagstaff, Ariz., where Santa Fe operator Elisa Lindenberg apprenticed in 1943, an operator hands up orders to an FT-powered eastbound perishables train in 1947. Joe Lynch The time was August 1943, the place, Flagstaff, Arizona. My mother, Elisa Ward Lindenberg, and I had come west because Zane Gray’s books had captivated her and she […]

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Drew’s Trackside Adventures: Episode 25 – Quarry tour along the CN main

Close-up view of a rock-carrying conveyor belt in a rail-served quarry.

Through special arrangements with Lannon Stone Products, Inc., a rail-served rock quarry along the Canadian National main line, host Drew Halverson and the MRVP video crew follow knowledgeable employees through the Sussex, Wisconsin, operation. In this industrial-sized adventure, you’ll enjoy seeing unique footage of rock blasting, crushing, processing, loading, and hauling, plus plenty of modeling […]

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