Head-end traffic helped cover some of the costs of America’s passenger trains for many years. Contracts with the United States Postal Service covered the transportation of mail, while the Railway Express Agency (REA) provided a nation- wide package delivery service. Small-to-medium-sized railroads forwarded most of the mail in Railway Post Office (RPO) cars and packages […]
Watch Southern Railway 2-8-0 Consolidation No. 630 operating in main line excursion service out of Spencer, N.C., in June 2012. This locomotive’s sister, Southern Mikado 2-8-2 No. 4501, is the focus of a feature in the May 2014 issue of Trains. […]
In this polar vortex edition of Drew’s Trackside Adventure for March 2014, host Drew Halverson and the MRVP crew make their way along Canadian National’s Waukesha subdivision in eastern Wisconsin. They capture the railroad battling the elements and gravity over a 1-percent grade known as Byron Hill. In addition to the railroad action, the guys […]
Two Union Pacific trains idle side-by-side just west of Southwest Drive while waiting permission to continue east through the Cheyenne, Wyo., yard on Aug. 20, 2013. Photo by Michael S. Murray […]
Canadian National train M345 bucks a drift at Leverett, Ill., in near-blizzard conditions on Jan. 6, 2014, with a pair of CSX ES44ACs in charge. Photo by Erik Coleman […]
BNSF Railway ES44DC No. 7339 heads up train U-TNDNSD through East Dubuque, Ill., on Jan. 19, 2014. The crude oil train will be interchanged to Norfolk Southern in Chicago for delivery to an East Coast refinery. Photo by Matt Krause […]
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 […]
An eastbound BNSF Railway freight passes Valentine, Ariz., on July 3, 2013, on the former Santa Fe main line. Photo by Michael T. Burkhart […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
