Patricia Howell, a 14-year veteran of Seaboard Air Line’s stewardess-nurse program, poses with the observation car of the Silver Star in 1955. Fraser Hale photo […]
Section: Photo of the Day
B&O F units at Terra Alta
In a view from the first vestibule behind the power, Baltimore & Ohio F7s on a westbound troop train pass two other A-B-A sets waiting for their next helper assignment at Terra Alta, W.Va., in May 1953. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Pennsy J1a at the Columbus coal dock
Pennsylvania J1a 2-10-4 6483, one of 125 J1’s and J1a’s the PRR built at its Altoona shops in 1942–44 to the plans of Chesapeake & Ohio’s class T-1, stands under the coal dock at Columbus, Ohio, in July 1950. Classic Trains coll. […]
2-8-0 with a streamliner
After unloading at Seattle Union Station, the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha was towed south behind steam, backward and with diesels still attached, to a wye, where the train was turned to head for its ultimate destination, Tacoma. Eastbound, the process was reversed. In this late-1940s scene, 2-8-0 No. 1225 does the honors. Stuart B. Hertz photo […]
Santa Fe courier-nurses
Two of Santa Fe’s courier-nurses show off newly redesigned uniforms as they pose with one of the road’s Hi-Level coaches in 1969. ATSF photo […]
2-8-0 with a fraught history
Duluth & Northeastern 2-8-0 No. 16, pictured without her smokebox door inside the short line’s enginehouse in September 1954, went into a river in 1916, was caught in a wildfire in 1918, and was inside the old enginehouse when it burned down in 1952. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Pennsy 0-6-0 at Williamsport
Pennsylvania Railroad class B6sb 0-6-0 No. 4027 has a small audience as it switches cars in Williamsport, Pa., in 1950. A. C. Kalmbach photo […]
C&O steam turbine
Chesapeake & Ohio 500 was one of three class M-1 steam-turbine-electric locomotives built by Baldwin-Westinghouse in 1946–47 for the new Chessie streamliner. But the road de-emphasized its passenger business, the Chessie never ran, and the M-1’s led short lives. Classic Trains coll. […]
Lehigh & New England Alco freight diesels
An A-B-A trio of 1,500 h.p. Alco freight diesels (in later nomenclature, two FA1’s and an FB1) rolls a train on the Lehigh & New England, a 178-mile anthracite hauler and Pennsylvania-New Jersey-New York bridge line that dieselized in 1949. Alco-GE photo […]
Landmark diesel: CNJ 1000
Central Railroad of New Jersey box-cab No. 1000, built by an Alco/General Electric/Ingersoll-Rand consortium, gained the title of “first commercially successful diesel-electric locomotive” when CNJ put it to work on October 22, 1925. After a three-decade career, the unit was retired to the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. CNJ photo […]
MoPac 2-8-4 on the move
Missouri Pacific 2-8-4 No. 1119 rolls a southbound freight over a new highway bridge at Austin, Texas, in 1948. Bruce F. Wilson photo […]
SP “Black Widow” F units
An A-B-B-A quartet of Southern Pacific F units dressed in the distinctive “Black Widow” livery lift an eastbound freight up into the town of Tehachapi, Calif., in 1949. Exhaust from a 4-8-8-2 cab-forward helper rises in the distance. Linn Westcott photo […]