A steam up in Nebraska

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1. Scratchbuilt, battery-powered brass steam locomotive. The author could not bring his live steam engine because of airport inspection. Yukio Nakagawa 2. Durham Western Heritage Museum, formerly the Union Pacific, Omaha Station. Yukio Nakagawa 3. Present Amtrak Omaha Station. Just one passenger train a day stops here. Yukio Nakagawa 4.House of Trains store in Omaha. […]

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A steam up in Nebraska

steamup1

1. Scratchbuilt, battery-powered brass steam locomotive. The author could not bring his live steam engine because of airport inspection. Yukio Nakagawa 2. Durham Western Heritage Museum, formerly the Union Pacific, Omaha Station. Yukio Nakagawa 3. Present Amtrak Omaha Station. Just one passenger train a day stops here. Yukio Nakagawa 4.House of Trains store in Omaha. […]

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To Chicago with Dad

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Grand Trunk Western 4-8-2 No. 6040 on the Maple Leaf stands beside Santa Fe E1 diesel No. 2 on the Kansas Cityan at Chicago’s Dearborn Station. Frank M. Rogers I think I was a railfan by the time I was 5 years old. My father had been a fireman on the Milwaukee Road since he […]

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New twist on intermodal

Motorists on I-94 must have done a double-take when this flatbed truck carrying Flagg Coal Co. No. 75 came rolling past on August 16, 2011. The 0-4-0 tank engine built in 1930 was headed to its home in Indiana after a weekend of operations on the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wis. Photo by […]

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Big Saturday night

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Frisco 4501, one of the road’s three 4500-series 4-8-4s assigned to passenger service, rolls the Meteor into St. Louis. Ben F. Cutler About midnight on a Saturday in 1944 on the station platform in Neosho, Mo., are 500 guys with suntans, each carrying a one-day pass and probably a railway ticket tucked in his wallet. […]

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A train in TRAINS’ driveway

Flagg Coal Co. No. 75 pays a visit to the offices of Kalmbach Publishing on August 16, 2011. The 0-4-0 tank engine was built by the Vulcan Iron Works in 1930. Now privately owned, it travels around the country to tourist railroads, and made a flag stop (ha ha) at Kalmbach, courtesy of owner John […]

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CP coming round the bend

Two high-horsepower GE locomotives approach Elm Grove, Wis., with eastbound Canadian Pacific coke train 852. The train is descending the subcontinental divide. (Water west of the divide flows into the Mississippi River, while water east of the divide flows into Lake Michigan.) Photo by Matt Van Hattem […]

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Waterlogged and logging miles

The spring flood waters have started to subside on the Mississippi River (as evidenced by the watermarks on the trees) at Gears Ferry Landing near Galena, Ill., as an eastbound BNSF “Z” train heads east toward Chicago on a cloudy and cool April 23, 2011. Photo by Steve Bauer […]

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Rondout Memories

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Seen from the North Shore Line bridge, a Milwaukee Road F7 4-6-4 rips through Rondout, Ill., with train 15, the Olympian, in March 1941. Frank Sellers At Christmastime 1940, when I was 15 years old, my widowed mother spent $4 of her hard-earned money to buy me a Kodak Brownie Special camera. I was thrilled. […]

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