News photo: NJ Transit’s latest heritage locomotive

Black and yellow diesel locomotive

NJ Transit has unveiled its latest heritage unit, painted for the Erie Railroad, one of its commuter-rail predecessors. The commuter operator released the photo of GP40PH-2B No. 4210 this weekend in Erie’s black-and-gold paint scheme, noting the railroad “held a large presence in the North Jersey commuter rail scene” and operated on what are now […]

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Three groups receive funds for exhibits about Bismarck bridge

Train coming off bridge on broad curve

  BISMARCK, N.D. — Three organizations have received a total of more than $250,000 to fund historical exhibits about the Bismarck-Mandan Rail Bridge, KFYR-TV reports. BNSF Railway is providing funding through the State Historical Society for the exhibits under an agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard. The North Dakota State Railroad Museum in Mandan will […]

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Metra EMD F40C diesel locomotives

Blue, white, and silver EMD F40C diesel locomotives with red nose stripes

  EMD F40C diesel locomotives were six-axle, 3,200-hp units built for Chicago-area commuter service in 1974. They were found on two Milwaukee Road-operated routes out of Union Station, one west to Elgin and one north to Fox Lake. The units had a cowl body like the Amtrak SDP40F of 1973, but used an alternator to […]

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Never too many Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge books

Man sleeps in steam locomotive cab

Does the world need another book about the Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge?     Someone might reasonably ask. Of all railroads with a literature disproportionate to its relative economic importance, the D&RGW is Exhibit A. To underscore the point, I stopped into the Kalmbach Media library to do some rudimentary research: when […]

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North Carolina to provide $12 million for Saluda Grade trail

Map of former rail route in North and South Carolina.

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — The effort to turn the former Saluda Grade into a hiking and biking trail has received an additional boost with $12 million in funding from the state of North Carolina, the Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal reports. The North Carolina state budget approved Sept. 22 includes that funding over a two-year period toward purchase […]

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Iowa Traction Railway honored with preservation award

Five people with plaque

INDIANAPOLIS — The Iowa Traction Railway has received the inaugural “Outstanding Railroad Historic Preservation Award,” presented Monday at the opening day of Railway Interchange by the National Railway Historical Society in conjunction with the magazines Railway Age and Railway Track & Structures. The award honors a North American common-carrier railroad for a historically significant preservation […]

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Canadian National donates ‘Draper Taper’ unit to museum

Red, white, and black cowl-unit locomotive

EDMONTON — Canadian National has donated a former British Columbia Railway C40-8M locomotive — a wide-cab locomotive featuring the “Draper Taper” design behind the cab for improved rearward visibility — to the Alberta Railway Museum. CN retired its fleet of the 4,000-hp General Electric locomotives earlier this year, but set aside No. 4618 for the […]

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Erie Railroad history remembered

Smoking steam locomotive among many railroad signals

Erie Railroad history starts, surprisingly, with a canal.     “The Work of the Age” was a proclamation by New York City’s Common Council upon the opening of the 300-mile New York & Erie Railway in 1851, “Erie” referring to one of the Great Lakes. New York City had become the natural gateway to the […]

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Largest 2-8-2 Mikado: Great Northern’s O-8 class

Largest 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive in yard

For much of the first half of the 20th century, the 2-8-2 Mikado was the dominant freight locomotive of the steam era. With its medium weight and medium power, it became the go-to, general-purpose engine — sort of the GP38 of its era. Consider how the World War I-era United States Railroad Administration divvied up […]

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Pioneer electrification

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Baltimore & Ohio’s Howard Street Tunnel below downtown Baltimore was the site of the first “steam-railroad” electrification in America. This view at Mount Royal station is from shortly after the start of service in 1895. Classic Trains coll. […]

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