Western Maryland 2-10-0 1109 rounds famous Helmstetter’s Curve west of Cumberland, Md., with a westbound freight in May 1952. Unseen, two more Decapods at mid-train and a fourth on the rear help lift the train upgrade. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Section: Photo of the Day
Coast Line doubleheader
Atlantic Coast Line 2-8-2 7230 and 4-8-2 7372 team up on a northbound freight near Vienna, Va., in 1947. Both engines formerly worked for the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast, which ACL acquired in 1945. David W. Salter photo […]
Central C-Liner and a Studebaker
New York Central 4505, a rare Fairbanks-Morse CPA-24-5, leads a train toward Chicago at Otis, Ind., in April 1954. A Studebaker, built in nearby South Bend, is beside the depot. Eugene Van Dusen photo […]
Camelback on Starrucca
In an early 20th century photo, a Camelback locomotive, probably a 2-8-0, crosses the Erie Railroad’s Starrucca Viaduct with a westbound freight. Completed in 1848 at Lanesboro, Pa., on the Erie’s main line west to Binghamton, N.Y., the 1,200-foot stone structure is still carrying trains in 2017. Erie photo […]
‘Olympian Hiawatha’ dining car
An artist’s rendering depicts the interior of the dining car on the Milwaukee Road’s 1947 Olympian Hiawatha. Classic Trains coll. […]
Bessemer Baldwin
Bessemer & Lake Erie locomotive 403, one of 82 six-motor, 1,500 h.p. DRS-6-6-15 road-switchers built by Baldwin between 1948 and 1950, idles in 1970. Eric Hirsimaki photo […]
BA&P road-switcher electrics
Montana’s Butte, Anaconda & Pacific relied on a fleet of 28 General Electric box-cabs after it electrified its line in 1913. The road received these two road-switcher-style motors from GE in 1957, then went to diesels in 1967. General Electric photo […]
Wooding-up
Crewmen toss pine knots into the tender of Mississippi & Alabama 2-6-2 Prairie-type No. 4 at the wood rack, or “wooding-up platform,” in Leakesville, Miss., in September 1948. The Prairie-type was the 17-mile road’s only locomotive. C.W. Witbeck photo […]
Western Maryland Pacific
Well-tended Western Maryland 4-6-2 Pacific-type No. 153 stands beside the joint Chesapeake & Ohio-Western Maryland station at Durbin, W.Va., with train No. 53 from Elkins. The railroad had 19 such locomotives in the K-1 and K-2 classes, built by Baldwin between 1909 and 1912. Robert F. Collins photo […]
View from a short line’s caboose
Gainesville Midland 2-10-0 No. 207 does the honors on a freight from Athens to Gainesville, Ga., in April 1957. The 40-mile road in northern Georgia had five such locomotives on its roster with various backgrounds, along with two 2-8-0s. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Troop train
Soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 35th Division board cars at Camp Robinson, Ark., on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The era of the troop train had thus begun. U.S. Army Signal Corps. photo […]
Snow squall
During a Lake Erie snow squall at Stony Point, Pa., about 12 miles west of Meadville, K-5 Pacific-type No. 2924 stands in the siding as an unidentified K-5a dashes past with an eastbound train. The railroad had 160 locomotives of the 4-6-2 wheel arrangement in five classes and multiple subclasses built by Baldwin, Lima, Richmond, […]