Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page Jim Munns’ HO scale Christie Division is a freelanced model railroad set in September 1955. The Chicago & North Western Ry. (C&NW) inspired the model train layout. Watch trains run through the detailed scenes. […]
Zone & Region: Midwest
North Star in waiting
A North Star commuter train waits at the end of the line, Big Lake, Minn, before its return trip to Minneapolis on April 10, 2010. Photo by Rick Johnson […]
Ohio Governor-elect: “That train is dead” NEWSWIRE
COLUMBUS, Ohio – In his first news conference as governor-elect, John Kasich shot down the proposed passenger train corridor linking Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Kasich told reporters: “That train is dead. I said it during the campaign. It is dead. Passenger rail is not in Ohio’s future.” Kasich went on to say that he supports […]
Spreading my wings from SN Junction
On a hot afternoon in August 1960, the year before the author began his Erie employment there, five Alco cab units thundered past SN Tower with a 99 freight. J. David Ingles In 1961 my dream came true. For the past six months or so I had been hanging out at various towers on the […]
Illinois city celebrates station upgrades NEWSWIRE
MATTOON, Ill. – A four-year, $3 million project to stabilize and then improve the three-story former railroad office building and passenger station in Mattoon was celebrated last week by Amtrak and Illinois DOT. Six daily Amtrak trains use the station, which is sited about 130 miles northeast of St. Louis. The Coles County Historical Society […]
Birth of an NC&StL nickname
Bruceton was a busy junction in west Tennessee on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway. One engineer who worked out of there was known for his pompous, stuffed-shirt manner and lordly bearing which often grated upon others. Drawing a hotshot run out of Bruceton, this engineer put his 2-8-2 to serious work and was […]
Get the old man
Way back in 1940, I took a fling at railroading. After ditching art school, I went to work for the Alton Railroad at its roundhouse at Glenn Yard in southwest Chicago. My job was mechanic’s helper. One of my duties was to tighten the bolts on locomotive cylinder heads. I attacked the task with vim […]
They made Milwaukee great
Two Wisconsin & Southern MP15s switch the MillerCoors brewery on July 1, 2010. The lead unit’s heritage is unmistakable, thanks to the Milwaukee Road lettering and “bandit” colors. Railroads and brewing propelled Milwaukee’s industrial might in the 20th century. Matt Van Hattem photo […]
The Railroad Capital through the Years
Illinois Central wasn’t the first railroad in Chicago, but it was one of 10 Class 1’s headquartered there and became arguably the most visible, thanks to its lakefront location. Its Romanesque Revival-style Central Station, built on fill in Lake Michigan for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, served IC plus New York Central’s Michigan Central and […]
Key C&O facilities
To handle maintenance and repairs on its substantial hopper-car fleet, coal-hauler Chesapeake & Ohio in 1930 built this systemwide freight-car shop at Raceland, Ky., at the west end of its massive Russell Yard, a facility built to classify coal cars moving west to Cincinnati and Chicago, as well as north to Lake Erie docks for […]
Three key locations on the Old Reliable
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 […]
About that Milwaukee Road map
Trains Magazine’s September 2010 “Map of the Month: Milwaukee Road Growth” maps the expansion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, from a 20-mile line linking Milwaukee and Waukesha, Wis. (respectively, Trains’ past and current hometown) into a 10,733-mile transcontinental system over a scant 100 years. Any map charting this kind of expansion […]
