One day in March

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With the empty SP track to the right, SP&S RS3 78 trundles past with a short freight at Albany, Ore., on March 18, 1967. David Lustig Where were you on March 18, 1967? I was in Albany, Ore., a teenager waiting patiently for a southbound Southern Pacific freight train that I knew in my bones […]

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Second 68 and the Lafayette Helper

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With engineer Steiner at the throttle of Nickel Plate Road 893, fireman Jennings shows photographer Lewis the coal scoop, which Lewis often wielded aboard the old 2-8-0. Hal Lewis In 1949, on the Nickel Plate Road’s Peoria Division, a daily eastbound local freight, operated as Second 68, ran from Peoria to Frankfort, Ind. Its power […]

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When white was black

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A Reading I-8sb 2-8-0, standard freight power on the road’s Wilmington & Northern branch, is a long way from that bucolic line as it heads a local freight at Newtown Junction in Philadelphia on November 22, 1947. Leslie R. Ross When I was a teenager, some 60 years ago, I spent much time exploring, watching, […]

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Who was Miss Hazen?

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Looking not unlike Miss Hazen’s train 719, an unidentified Bay Head local rockets out of South Amboy behind Pennsy K4 5428 circa 1940. Frank Quin Life can be funny sometimes. The first railroad tracks I ever saw were those of the New York & Long Branch at Manasquan, N.J., in the mid-1930’s. But I don’t […]

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Pacific Electric Red Cars in action

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Watch video clips of Pacific Electric Red Cars in action at Dominguez Junction and other locations on the Los Angeles–Long Beach line. Footage is from the DVD program Pacific Electric: Remembering the Red Cars, Vol. 1, available from Transit Gloria Mundi. […]

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Video: History according to Hediger 11

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Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page Season 2 of History according to Hediger will feature various items from the historical display cases at the Model Railroader offices. Senior editor Jim Hediger will share the background of these items. In this first episode you’ll learn about the red switcher of […]

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Mission accomplished

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Author Hartley finally caught up with the elusive New Haven FA’s in Boston. Allan G. Hartley The New Haven Railroad was the perfect pike for a young railroad enthusiast. Station agents and block operators always would take the time to talk and tell me about what would be arriving next. Train crews were professional, yet […]

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The Columbus Junction canine caper

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On a hot summer night in the early 1960s, Rock Island E3 626 stands at Waterloo, Iowa, with train 190. Ahead 110 miles: Columbus Junction. J. David Ingles Sad to say, this story is true. Only the name of the guilty is omitted. Sad to say, I knew this man—and still do now. It happened […]

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A sandwich on the house

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To our family, the ultimate train was not the Broadway, the 20th Century, or the exalted Dominion that plied our home Canadian Pacific rails out of Toronto. For us, the train was CPR’s nameless workaday No. 25, leaving daily at 10:30 (reading as 9:30 in the days when timetables were printed in Standard Time regardless […]

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Nice to fire for, but a bit strange

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Southern Pacific 2-10-2 3757 rests at Sparks, Nev., in 1948. J. F. Larison I went firing on the Southern Pacific’s Coast Division in 1953. My engineer’s name was Lindsay, a hoghead in the regular San Francisco-Watsonville Junction (Calif.) chain gang. I fired for Lindsay several times and, although he never checked the water level by […]

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