Railroads Archives - Page 39 of 281

Nickel Plate’s Calumet cafeteria

Nickel Plate Road crewmen enjoy a meal in the cafeteria of the new away-from-home crew building at NKP’s Calumet Yard in 1951. NKP photo […]

Railroad drone photography with Brandon Fiume

Steam locomotive with motion blur and mountain scenery.

Railroad drone photography Digital photography is constantly improving, and these advancements are empowering photographers to push the boundaries and implore new styles of photography. A new style that has recently emerged reinvents the classic, pan and pace. Using a low shutter speed and a steady hand, this style allows photographers to focus on the subject […]

Powhatan Arrow on display

Norfolk & Western class J 4-8-4 No. 609 stands with a set of new cars for the Powhatan Arrow at Williamson, W.Va., during a 1950 display tour. N&W photo […]

East Broad Top Railroad freight cars in the 21st Century

Overhead shot of mix-freight train with a flatcar and boxcar in the foreground.

East Broad Top Railroad freight cars tell the story of a narrow-gauge railroad that was ahead of its time. Here’s what you should know about this mostly home-built fleet that survives today at the National Historic Landmark in Pennsylvania. Hoppers In the common-carrier era, East Broad Top lived off coal as its main traffic. The […]

What could a Big Boy West Coast Steam Tour be?

A Big Boy locomotive leads a yellow passenger train through the Great Plains.

On the same route of the proposed Big Boy West Coast Steam Tour, Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 No. 4014 leads a matched UP office car train westward through Speer, Wyo., in 2019. Jim Wrinn photograph There was a collective groan that could be heard from many railfans west of the Rockies in 2022 when the Union […]

Seaboard stewardess-nurse

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 […]

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. […]

Intense media focus on derailments belies long-term safety trends

Why are there so many derailments? Freight train derailments have been in the headlines since the disastrous Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern wreck in East Palestine, Ohio. Some have been spectacular, like the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train caught on video at a grade crossing in Springfield, Ohio.; the fiery derailment of a BNSF Railway […]

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 […]

Beyond the byline with Kevin Gilliam

What was your first byline in Trains? Kevin Gilliam: My first byline was what became a Trains Trackside (previously Trains Presents) five-minute video that was concurrent with the Norfolk Southern 21st Century Steam Program visit to Asheville, N.C., in April 2013. More of those short videos followed, eventually culminating in the first feature-length 611 In Steam […]

Keystone Arch Bridges of Massachusetts

Winter photo of a blue freight locomotive on stone arch bridge

Still in use more than 180 years after they were built, the Keystone Arch Bridges of western Massachusetts stand as enduring monuments to the skill of their creators. An economic crisis Boston had a problem in the late 1830s. The newly completed Erie Canal was drawing more and more trade to the ports of New […]