Boxcars assigned to less-than-carload (LCL) service — including several Southern Pacific “Overnight” boxcars — are being loaded on parallel tracks at Pacific Electric’s 8th Street Freight Station in Los Angeles in the 1940s. PE was an SP subsidiary. Pacific Electric […]
The Pennsylvania Railroad is famed for its GG1 electric locomotives, but casual observers might be surprised to learn how extensive Pennsy’s electric operations were. After a tentative start with a limited D.C. third-rail system in the early 1900s, the PRR built an A.C. catenary empire between 1915 and 1938 — and fielded an impressive array […]
In late 1941, officials in hats and overcoats look over the newest thing on the Milwaukee Road: two-unit Electro-Motive E6 passenger diesel No. 15. At left in this scene at the east end of the road’s station in Milwaukee is suddenly obsolete F6 4-6-4 131. Photo from Classic Trains collection […]
The layout at a glance Name: Royal Gorge Route Layout owner: Florida Scale Rails club Scale: HO (1:87.1) Size: 8 x 12 feet Prototype: Denver & Rio Grande Western (standard and HOn3 narrow gauge); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; and Union Pacific Locale: Colorado Era: 1930s to ’60s Mainline run: 75 feet Minimum radius: 22″ […]
Minneapolis & St. Louis 2-6-0 330 is at Story City, Iowa, on March 9, 1944, with the triweekly mixed train from Marshalltown. Story City was at the end of a 38-mile branch line. Photo by William F. Armstrong […]
Erie R-3 2-10-2 4207 stands at Avoca, Pa., on June 22, 1941, during what appears to be a railfan event (people are boarding coaches in the background). Note the push pole on the tender. Photo by Robert F. Collins photo, John Locke collection […]
Union Pacific train 339, the mixed from Twin Falls, Idaho, nears its destination of Wells, Nev., in fall 1943. Locomotive 2127, a 2-8-2 of subsidiary Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Co., is a class MK-1 one of 41 such engines built by Baldwin. Photo by W. B. Wolverton photo, W. H. Wolverton collection […]
Passengers bound for points in Northern California’s Marin County board their train at the Northwestern Pacific rail-ferry terminal in Sausalito in the late 1930s. Service began here in 1875 under the auspices of the narrow-gauge North Pacific Coast Railroad. Opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937 was the beginning of the end, and the […]
Workers pack ice in wooden crates with carrots at Elsa, Texas, northwest of Brownsville, in February 1939. There is an unidentified wooden reefer behind them. Photo by Russell Lee, Library of Congress […]
In 1940 Union Pacific replaced its old Las Vegas depot with this one, designed in a variant of the Art Deco style known as Streamline Moderne. The railroad’s shield and “Route of the Streamliners and the Challengers” sign — both rendered in neon, of course — faced up casino-lined Fremont Street. In 1956, UP augmented […]
In 1928 I was a freshman at Syracuse University. I needed a part-time job, and got one with American Railway Express, Inc., which became Railway Express Agency the following year. I worked at the New York Central’s Syracuse depot on the night shift Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings from 5 p.m. until 1 a.m., whenever […]
Credit the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy for building the first modern-day dome car. The “Silver Dome,” built from a coach, debuted in 1945. Photo by Burlington Route […]
