Driving south recently on Interstate 75, nearing the Kentucky/Tennessee line, an upcoming offramp caught my eye, causing me to make a quick turn to the right. “Next exit, Jellico.” Jellico! A town I likely never would have known were it not for a memorable July 30, 1975, steam excursion behind celebrated Southern Railway 2-8-2 […]
Thanks to a friendly crew, here is the Indiana countryside between Kokomo and Elwood as seen from the cab of Penn Central E7 4211 on April 20, 1971. No. 66, a remnant of the Pennsy’s Buckeye, had just 10 days to live. Photo by J. David Ingles […]
Its paint and glory faded, Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Alco DL109 No. 271 rests on a siding along the Indiana Harbor Belt at La Grange, Ill., on its way to scrapping for trade-in credit on new EMD locomotives in September 1963. Photo by Jim C. Seacrest […]
Amtrak Twin Cities services started on May 1, 1971, at the Burlington Northern (former Great Northern) station in Minneapolis. Service levels ebbed and flowed through the years as trains were added or subtracted. Amtrak opened a new Twin Cities station on March 1, 1978, using a standard plan that was also built in […]
The first rail-to-trail conversion in the U.S., the Elroy-Sparta State Trail, gives riders an opportunity to traverse three tunnels. Wisconsin isn’t usually associated with railroad tunnels, but it once had a number of them. Today only Canadian Pacific’s bore at Tunnel City is active, but next door is the closed tunnel of the Chicago […]
Trains magazine Editor David P. Morgan watches the head end of a Southern Pacific freight pull out of the center siding at Midas, Calif., on the west side of Donner Pass. He and the photographer will board the 104-car train’s caboose when it reaches them. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Workers fuel and exchange mail on Chicago, Burlington & Quincy train 29, known informally as the “Night Crawler,” at Casper, Wyo., in July 1966. Passengers have detrained for breakfast in town while “Chinese red” EMD and GE diesels on a freight wait to follow the passenger train out of town, the largest in the state […]
The Continental elevator at Milwaukee, shown in 1986, had a capacity of 3.1 million bushels. Located on a Lake Michigan harbor, the elevator could load 30,000 bushels per hour onto ships. It was served at the time by the Chicago & North Western, whose cars are shown alongside the facility with its Alco switcher. Photo […]
Pittsburgh & West Virginia and Wheeling & Lake Erie engines and crews ran through between Brewster, Ohio, and Rook, Pa. In September 1950 at Mingo on the P&WV, Wheeling 2-8-2 6008 heads onto the Ohio River bridge with the first section of train 92 as P&WV Mikado 1010 waits with a westbound extra. Photo by […]
On a frigid December 30, 1948, two Chicago & North Western E units leave Madison, Wis., with a Chicago-bound mail-and-express train. The train is crossing the Milwaukee Road diamond at MX Tower, located at the intersection of two causeways across Lake Monona; the state capitol rises beyond. Photo by William D. Middleton […]
The GMDH1 diesel-hydraulic locomotives led a short life with one staying near their birthplace of London, Ontario. Diesel-hydraulic railroad locomotives are just what they say they are: diesel engines connected to a hydraulic transmission via the same principle as you would in your automobile. They can be found in various parts of the […]
Erie Railroad locomotives included both oddball steam and diesels right out of a builder’s catalog. The Erie was a big user of the 2-8-0 Consolidation and 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive types. Going a step larger, the Erie experimented with articulated locomotives beginning with three Camelback 0-8-8-0s for pusher service in 1907. This evolved […]
