ST. JACOBS, Ontario — Heritage operator Waterloo Central Railway operated its 0-6-0 locomotive No. 9 on Canada’s Thanksgiving weekend for the first time in two years, following a two-year retrofit and its 10-year boiler inspection from Ontario’s Technical Standards and Safety Authority. The locomotive, built in 1923 by the Montreal Locomotive Works for the Essex […]
ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa.—The East Broad Top Railroad notched another first during the Oct. 7-9 annual gathering of its friends auxiliary group, carrying passengers on a mile of narrow gauge main line that’s been out of service for 66 years. As part of the Fall Reunion of the 1,777-member nonprofit Friends of the East Broad Top, EBT […]
ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. – Friends of the East Broad Top volunteers wrapped up a week’s worth of labor on Friday, Sept. 23, the group’s second week of concentrated effort this year. The crew ranged between 10 and 20 people, working in close coordination with the railroad’s own full-time employees, according to Andy Van Scyoc, Friends […]
BRECKSVILLE, Ohio — Protection of the right-of-way of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Rallroad will be part of infrastructure work at Cuyahoga Valley National Park funded by a $14 million grant through the Great American Outdoors Act, the park has announced. The funds will stabilize the riverbank at locations along the Cuyahoga River where the railroad line […]
Mind-blowing East Broad Top facts Tucked deep in the Allegheny Mountains, between Altoona and Harrisburg, is Rockhill, Pa. Today, Rockhill is home to a railroad time capsule called the East Broad Top Railroad, arguably one of the more famous and best-preserved U.S. narrow gauge lines. Built between 1872 and 1874, the EBT mostly lugged coal […]
JACKSON, Mo. — Tourist operator St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railway has repainted its former Pennsylvania Railroad E8, No. 5898, in the classic Pennsy pinstripe livery. The locomotive, built by EMD in La Grange, Ill, in 1951, was purchased from the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad in 1998. Since 2020, the engine has […]
STRASBURG, Pa. – Jim Hager brings a host of skills and experience to his new job as general manager of the 190-year-old Strasburg Rail Road, America’s oldest short line and now one of the country’s busiest and longest-running steam tourist railroads. A New Jersey native, he started hanging around the Black River & Western, another […]
ELBE, Wash. — The Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and Museum, shut down by owner American Heritage Railways in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, will resume operation in 2024 or 2025, according to the executive director of the Western Forest Industries Museum. The Centralia Chronicle reports Forest Industries Museum Executive Director Bethan Maher […]
WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — The first presentation of the Jim Wrinn Award for Biggest Railroad Preservation story highlighted the Fall 2022 conference of the HeritageRail Alliance — the first in-person meeting of the organization since 2019 — held Sept. 7-10 in Windsor Locks. Cate Kratville-Wrinn, wife of the late Trains Magazine editor, handed out the […]
CUMBERLAND, Md. — Western Maryland Scenic Railroad’s locomotive roster continues to diversify with the unveiling of a Western Maryland-painted GE B32-8, NIWX No. 558. The nearly 33-year-old General Electric four-axle Dash 8 locomotive now sports Western Maryland’s black-and-yellow fireball paint scheme. It arrived at the railroad earlier this year with former Norfolk Southern paint and […]
CUMBERLAND, Md. — Western Maryland Scenic Railroad excursions have been cancelled through Sept. 11 because of track damage caused by recent heavy rains, the Cumberland Times-News reports. Damage was confined to about 250 feet of track near the railroad’s shop and yard in Ridgeley, W.Va., on the West Virginia side of the North Branch Potomac […]
STAUNTON, Va. — Hauling freight isn’t the Buckingham Branch Railroad’s only forte, as the Virginia short line’s newly launched tourist train has shown. The Virginia Scenic Railway has sold out all of its seats through Thanksgiving after launching its tourist operation a month ago. The Staunton-based railroad recently shared on social media that both of […]
