The Louisville & Nashville Railroad began by linking its namesake cities, and eventually grew to reach New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Atlanta. But Kentucky’s largest city was L&N’s home, heart, and headquarters, and the Bluegrass State’s top natural resource — coal — sustained the carrier that came to call itself “the Old Reliable.” In […]
A supplement to the Classic Trains Online Look Back e-mail newsletter Today, sports teams routinely travel by bus or plane to and from games in other cities. In the 1940’s and ’50’s, they often rode trains, and so did the sportscasters who covered the games. Bob Brooks, veteran broadcaster for the University of Iowa in […]
View the article “Tough Texans of the Bessemer,” by Bert Pennypacker, from the Winter 2000 issue of Classic Trains. The Fall 2010 issue of CT features a study of the 2-10-4 wheel arrangement on all the railroads that operated it.– […]
Portage Flyer timetable This 9×17-inch document shows the 1942 summer schedule for the Huntsville & Lake of Bays Transportation Co. steamboat services east from Huntsville, Ont. Note that, although connections with Canadian National mainline trains at Huntsville are shown, there’s no mention of the “Portage Flyer” railway — just arrival and departure times for the […]
Watch video clips of Pennsy and Santa Fe 2-10-4’s from the Herron Rail Video program “Pennsylvania Glory, Part 2.” The PRR leased 12 5011-class engines from Santa Fe in summer 1956 for use on the Columbus-Sandusky line, where they worked beside PRR’s own J1’s. The Fall 2010 issue of Classic Trains features a study of […]
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A supplement to the Classic Trains Online Look Back e-mail newsletter In modern-day Toronto, Ontario, I’m told the Skydome Hotel occupies what was once the site of Canadian National Railway’s Spadina Avenue engine terminal. Back on September 4, 1958, I spent part of a warm, late-summer night at Spadina, lugging cameras and a tripod and […]
V&T 11 and 27 with a railfan special on the 2 percent grade at Moundhouse, Nev., June 5, 1938. T.G. Wurm V&T 11 and 27 run light into Virginia City to turn on the turntable after pulling a railfan excursion from Carson City to Gold Hill on June 5, 1938. T.G. Wurm Last train from […]
A supplement to the Classic Trains Online Look Back e-mail newsletter The pride of Sandusky, Ohio, is the huge Cedar Point Amusement Park on a peninsula jutting into Lake Erie north of downtown. The pride of Cedar Point, at least for railfans, is its 2-foot-gauge steam-powered railroad. On June 26, 1966, Cedar Point was a […]
In Historic Trains Today, David Lustig tells of seven cool diesels you can visit in museums today. Here are four more examples of neat historic locomotives you can see, and in some cases, ride behind. Wisconsin Central GP30 No. 713 rests between assignments at Waukesha, Wis., on May 3, 1989. The ex-Soo Line unit rides […]
Soldiers and citizens pose in front of the Union Pacific depot in North Platte, Neb., on April 27, 1898. Union Pacific Museum Before there was a burning man festival, North Platte threw the biggest party in the West, when Union Pacific tracklayers made a winter camp with miners, traders, Mormon emigrants, and stagecoach drivers in […]
Preservation of former railroad stations takes many forms, from visitor centers and museums to offices and restaurants. Ciddici’s Pizza of Albany, Oregon, retains most of the original exterior features of the Oregon Electric structure, especially the “OER” logo. Scott Lothes The locomotive John Bull, donated by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1884, was the Smithsonian Institution’s […]
