Video clips courtesy of Herron Rail Video. […]
Steam in the atomic age
CV M-5-a 461, the same class of 2-8-0 entrusted with atomic loads, nears Amherst, Mass., with a Palmer-Brattleboro local in 1950. Robert P. Brittin, Douglas J. Brittin coll. As a child in the mid-1950s, I was privileged to witness several “secret” military moves on the Central Vermont Railway. Given the high state of security surrounding […]
SP logging train
A Southern Pacific 2-8-0 pulls a log train on the Cloudcroft branch near Alamogordo, N.Mex. This view is from 1946, three years before the line was abandoned. Henry Garcia photo […]
Santa Fe’s Fast Mail and Chief
An A-B-B set of F7’s leads the Santa Fe’s Fast Mail Express toward Los Angeles at West Victorville, Calif., in 1950. The train’s 14-car consist is heavy with baggage, express, and mail storage cars, but it also includes a Railway Post Office car. A baggage-coach combine brought up the rear as a rider car for […]
1975-1982: Seven more years of change in Philadelphia
South of 30th Street Station in September 1980, an Amtrak E60 accelerates a train toward Washington while, in the background, SEPTA Silverliner IV’s head out on a commuter run to either Media/Elwyn or Wilmington. Robert S. McGonigal Bob Trennert, in his article “A West Coast Railfan in Philadelphia, 1967–1974” in the Spring 2013 issue of […]
Union Pacific Big Boys and Challengers in action
Watch some of the 16mm films of Big Boys and Challengers Stan Kistler took during his 1956 trip, excerpted from the DVD program Union Pacific Classic Collectors’ Series, produced by Pentrex. […]
Grand Central Station, Chicago
The Baltimore & Ohio’s passenger terminal in Chicago was Grand Central Station, built in 1890 to the plans of noted architect S. S. Bemen. The Wisconsin Central Railroad actually commissioned the station, but later sold it to the B&O; other users were Chicago Great Western and Pere Marquette. Grand Central was razed in 1970; its […]
North Western 4-6-4 at West Chicago
Chicago & North Western class E-4 streamlined Hudson sails through West Chicago, Ill., with one of the Union Pacific Challenger trains in September 1945. The second car in the train is a U.S. Army hospital car. Henry J. McCord photo […]
An aggravating situation, with a 1940s solution
Santa Fe 2-8-2 3243 climbs west toward Summit, Calif., in 1952. Chard Walker In the early 1940s, when steam locomotives were supreme, I worked on the Santa Fe around Los Angeles. At Redondo Junction, today the north end of the “Alameda Corridor” to the L.A. and Long Beach harbor facilities, Santa Fe’s Harbor Branch left […]
‘Foreigners’ at Bensenville . . . and beyond
West of Huntington, Ind., on the Erie Lackawanna, in March 1976, an EL U25B and GP35 back down to an eastbound freight brought in from Chicago by Milwaukee Road F units. Mike Schafer When I started with the Milwaukee Road in 1971, in road service, the railroad was desperately short of motive power. To help […]
Merger time in Warren
Renumbered DL&W E8’s (top) roll into Warren with train 6 in 1962. Earlier that year, E8 833, its livery only slightly altered to reflect the 1960 EL merger, led an ex-DL&W E8 on No. 9. W. L. Gwyer The Erie Railroad served my hometown of Warren, Ohio. During my college years in the early 1960s, […]
Classic Trains, Winter 2012
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