B&O steam

20180618

In 1955, Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 4443 pulls an eastbound coal train past the yard at Lumberton, W.Va., where the local switcher, an 0-8-0, is working. James P. Gallagher photo […]

Read More…

Alcos for Ford

20190916

At least five Alco-built diesel switchers line up at Ford Motor Co.’s Dearborn, Mich., plant. Did you really think the automaker would buy locomotives from rival General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division? Classic Trains collection […]

Read More…

‘Rail to Trail’

20190930

A stagecoach, steam locomotive, and F7 in Southern Pacific’s “black widow” paint scheme gather at a “Rail to Trail” pageant in Sacramento, Calif., celebrating the 100th anniversary of SP’s earliest predecessor, the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which began operation in 1856. Southern Pacific photo […]

Read More…

Sharks on the Monongahela

20180808

Two Baldwin RF16 “Sharknose” diesels of the Monongahela Railroad lug a train of empty coal hoppers along the carrier’s namesake river at Alicia, Pa., in the late 1960s. The ex-New York Central units later went to the Delaware & Hudson and for decades have been privately owned and stored at Escanaba, Mich. David H. Hamley […]

Read More…

Santa Fe’s celebrity PAs

20180820

Alco and Santa Fe pulled out all the stops when the road bought the first of the builder’s 2,000 h.p. postwar passenger diesels that came to be known as “PAs” (and “PBs” for booster units). Carrying ATSF road number 51, the brand-new three-unit locomotive heads a train down California’s Cajon Pass in October 1946. Santa […]

Read More…

Oil train on Cranberry Grade

20180828

Two 2-8-8-0 Mallets assist a train of oil-laden tank cars up Baltimore & Ohio’s 2.4-percent Cranberry Grade to Terra Alta, W.Va., in the early 1940s. The train has four of B&O’s distinctive “wagon top” cabooses, three of which presumably are deadheading. Classic Trains coll. […]

Read More…

NYC’s Riley on the IC

20180815

New York Central’s Chicago–Cincinnati streamliner, the James Whitcomb Riley, speeds past Illinois Central’s suburban-train station at 75th Street on the South Side of Chicago in 1947. The Riley left from IC’s Central Station on the lakefront and switched to NYC rails at Kankakee. Willard A. Gardner photo […]

Read More…

Morning Zephyr in the snow

20180823

Burlington Route’s Chicago–Minneapolis Morning Zephyr forges west at Downers Grove, Ill., on a snowy January 13, 1948. The six-car train carries four dome cars, including a dome-observation. CB&Q photo […]

Read More…

Meet on the Rio Grande

20180814

D&RGW SD40T-2s on a coal drag off the Craig Branch hold the main line for a meet with westbound freight No. 83 at Yarmony, a few miles east of Bond, Colo., in June 1976. Richard Loveman photo […]

Read More…

Last gasp of PRR steam

20180831

Pennsylvania Railroad B6sb 0-6-0 5244 simmers inside the road’s roundhouse at Camden, N.J., on October 4, 1958. PRR stopped using steam locomotives nearly a year previously, but 5244 hung on until mid-1959 on lease to New Jersey short line Union Transportation Co. Frank Kozempel photo […]

Read More…