“Deluxe” cars like these on New Haven train 365 at Darien, Conn., in July 1947 were not what author Paradis experienced on his commuter-train rides. NH The distant rumble warned that the mighty New York Central steam locomotive with its 12 steel coaches would soon round the curve on the Harlem Division and bear down […]
Amtrak GG1 meets an E60 in 1980, two years after the author’s ride behind one of each, plus a Conrail E44. Robert S. McGonigal As the murky fall afternoon began to lengthen, the Silver Meteor I was riding across northern New Jersey began to slow down. Then just east of Rahway, nowhere near a scheduled […]
NYC’s eastbound 20th Century Limited slows for a station stop at South Bend, Ind., in October 1962. Louis A. Marre On Saturday, February 17, 1962, a train wreck at Fonda, N.Y., on New York Central’s Water Level Route main line, blocked all traffic east and west. Because of this, westbound trains were to be diverted […]
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s Keystone Tubular Train, built by The Budd Co. in 1956, was designed to hug the rails tighter and enable faster transit times. PRR Q What happened to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Keystone Tubular Train? I heard it was in Michigan and derailed on its way to a new owner for dinner train service.— […]
High speed in New England in the 1970s meant these turbine-powered trainsets built by United Aircraft, which sprinted between Boston and New York from 1969 to 1976. The two Turbotrains (Amtrak later bought a third set from VIA Rail Canada) achieved the route’s best-ever timings — 3 hours and 48 minutes between Boston and New […]
A Rutland RS3 switches at the road’s hub of Rutland, Vt., in 1957; 31.5 miles to the southeast on the Bellows Falls line is a road crossing with a memorable and long-lasting nickname. Jim Shaughnessy Many places are named for things associated with or located near them. Well-known examples include Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Warm Springs, […]
Connecticut resident Bob LaMay has been photographing Amtrak in his native New England since the carrier turned its first wheel in 1971. We present a small sampling of his work over the decades. For more on Amtrak’s 40th anniversary, pick up the July 2011 issue of Trains magazine, which looks back on the five biggest […]
These two cars at Steamtown National Historical Site look similar but had different uses. Hank Ickes Q In the yard at Steamtown National Historical Site in Scranton, Pa., are two cars that I couldn’t identify. Do you know what purpose these cars had? — Hank Ickes, Arlington, Va. A One is an auxiliary tender or […]
Engineer J.F. Keating carries workers aboard a flatcar on the 3¼-mile Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire on June 11, 1946. Today, the Cog runs mostly biodiesel engines. L.B. Herrin When I first visited the Mount Washington Cog Railway in 1980, exactly 30 years before my recent visit, it was an inadvertent museum, complete […]
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, […]
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 […]
Richard Benton (left) with a railroader in a traditional Eastern hat at Potomac Yard in the 1950s. Richardson D. Benton Ben Curtis’ father’s Eastern railroad hat (left) and the new version Kromer Cap will begin offering. Ben Curtis (left) Q My father wore this style train cap in the 1960s, purchased in the Boston area. […]
