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Magazine: Classic Trains
Niagara on the run
New York Central 4-8-4 Niagara 6023 is near the end of its short life as it rambles through Millbury Junction, Ohio, (7.5 miles east of Toledo) with nine-car mail-and-express train X-78 in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Turbine orphan
Westinghouse and partner Baldwin fielded an experimental 4,000 h.p. B-B+B-B gas-turbine-electric in 1950. Dubbed the “Blue Goose” because of its paint scheme (and perhaps for its unusual appearance), No. 4000, pictured at Chicago on the Chicago & North Western, generated no orders. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Trains of the 1940s
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P5a’s on a PRR freight
Two Pennsylvania Railroad P5a electrics roll northward with a freight at Halethorpe, Md., in the 1940s. Early P5a’s had box-cab carbodies; later versions with streamlined bodies, such as this pair, were known as “P5a modifieds.” Frank Clodfelter photo […]
Hi-cubes and fruit cans
NYC RS3 8288 — a “little diesel” to the author as a pre-schooler — heads a westbound way freight along the Hudson River at Peekskill in 1959. Nine years later and 29 miles down the river a hi-cube car ran into trouble. Karl R. Zimmermann Between the 1910s, when the New York Central electrified its […]
Seaboard Air Line at Melrose, N.C.
Watch 8mm home movies from 1945-46 of Seaboard Air Line steam and diesel action around Melrose, N.C. From the collection of James H. D. Helms Jr., whose father took the movies and whose grandfather was an SAL conductor. […]
SP piggyback train
For a time in the 1950s, Southern Pacific had the most extensive piggyback operations in the land. Here a train bound from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area climbs Santa Susana Pass near Chatsworth, Calif. Classic Trains coll. […]
Soo Line overnighter leaving Chicago
Handsome 4-8-2 No. 4018 marches away from Chicago’s Grand Central Station with Soo Line train 17 for Duluth, Minn., with cars for Minneapolis and Ashland, Wis., in May 1949. Harold Stirton photo […]
GM&O RS1 at Joliet
The engineer of a Gulf, Mobile & Ohio RS1 eyes the photographer as his locomotive clatters across the Rock Island diamonds at Joliet, Ill., in 1951. The Alco and a caboose are bound for GM&O’s South Joliet yard. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Inside GN’s 1951 Empire Builder
The 1951 edition of Great Northern’s flagship train, which the road called the Mid-Century Empire Builder at the time, included a 60-seat coach for short-haul passengers. GN photo […]
Last duty for a PRR Mikado
In September 1955, workers at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Renovo (Pa.) engine terminal prepare L1s 2-8-2 No. 8426 for service as a stationary steam supply at the road’s giant Sunnyside Yard in New York City. The Mike has been converted to oil-firing for this duty, most likely its last assignment. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
