America’s fastest rail lines

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How many places in the United States can a railroad passenger travel more than 70 miles in one hour? This map spotlights those locations, based on the schedules in Amtrak’s Fall/Winter 2007 system timetable and its Spring 2008 Northeast Corridor timetable. (Where precise information was not available, the speeds factor in 1 minute of dwell […]

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Afternoon switching with Whitewater Valley No. 25

Join Trains’ Steve Sweeney on a trip to the Whitewater Valley Railroad in December 2013. This tourist line in Southern Indiana boasts an assortment of rolling stock including cabooses and Stillwell commuter coaches. In this video, watch as Whitewater Valley crews use Lima-Hamilton No. 25 to switch cars in the afternoon before the railroad’s annual […]

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Railroads in Paintings and Photographs

FULL SCREEN Mike Danneman This painting of the 1947 Empire Builder led by EMD E7s is an acrylic on canvas board done in 2000. It shows the recently updated streamliner traveling westbound on the route over Marias Pass along the scenic southern border of Glacier National Park in Montana on a cold winter day. One […]

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The cat’s out of the bag

J at speed

Anything in the path of fast-moving N&W class J was sure to sustain significant damage. W. A. Akin Jr. Back in the glory days, the speed limit for passenger trains on Norfolk & Western’s Bristol Line was 65 mph. Several of the trains, including 45 and 46, the streamlined Tennessean, did considerable station work en […]

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Low water

  Grand Canyon Railway F40s head north at Red Lake, Ariz., for the South Rim on July 5, 2013, across a dry creek. Photo by Michael T. Burkhart […]

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Fallen flag

  It’s a cool, fall afternoon in Wixom, Mich., where the Michigan Air-Line Railway has completed its interchange with CSX and is retreating to its base in Walled Lake on Nov. 20, 2011. Six months after this photo was taken, these former Grand Trunk Western tracks were ripped up for a bike trail. Photo by […]

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Matched set

  Eastbound Providence & Worcester train FPCH with B39-8 No. 3909, B30-7A No. 3007, and B39-8 No. 3908 prepares to depart the New York & Atlantic Railway’s Fresh Pond Yard in Queens, N.Y., on Aug. 15, 2009. Photo by Thomas Mik     […]

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West Coast passenger trains

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What you’re seeing here is a transformation that’s nothing short of remarkable. Twenty years ago, a map of West Coast short-haul passenger trains would’ve been little more than a blank page. Back then, Amtrak provided minimal service between Oakland and Bakersfield, Calif., and between Portland and Seattle, though it did field 14 San Diegans a […]

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