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 […]
Preview Classic Trains‘ November 2023 content! Here’s a preview of what’s coming in the next month. Become a Trains.com member so you don’t miss any of this great content! If you have a story suggestion, email editor@classictrainsmag.com Smallest operating railroads in 1973 These 5 small railroads each operated just 2 mile of main line […]
Meadow River Lumber Co. No. 7 is a good example of a three-truck, standard-gauge, coal-burning Shay with a Radley & Hunter stack. The West Virginia company used steam locomotives into the mid-1960s. Matt Coleman collection […]
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. […]
Located outside Indianapolis, Avon Yard was one of several modern freight classification yards New York Central opened in the 1950s. NYC photo […]
Delaware & Hudson RS2 4001 and Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 2471 idle under the shed at Canadian Pacific’s Windsor Station, Montreal, in October 1953. The diesel has just arrived with the Laurentian from New York. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
History of track gauge: The gauge of a railroad is the distance between the inside vertical surfaces of the head of the rail. Standard gauge is 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches. This is the gauge used when steam railroading began. It became the common gauge of Britain, North America, and Western Europe — except for Spain, […]
Meatpacking firm John Morrell & Co. led the switch away from ice in refrigerator cars. Two of Morrell’s Mather cars converted to mechanical refrigeration head east on the Illinois Central’s Iowa Division in 1954. They were the first mechanical meat reefers. Basil W. Koob photo […]
The City of Miami passenger train one of three coordinated services linking Chicago with Miami. There was a time — like, as recently as 1979 — there was direct rail passenger service between the Upper Midwest (notably Chicago) and Florida. This ended with several slashes of Amtrak routes as a result of budget […]
The Amtrak GE P30CH locomotive is the spiritual successor to the GE U30CG passenger locomotive of 1967. Amtrak acquired 25 of the P30CH model, Nos. 700-724, between August 1975 and January 1976. The model designation led to the units’ nickname: “pooch.” It was essentially a U30C freight locomotive with a cowl body and […]
A single E6 diesel leads Louisville & Nashville’s Cincinnati–New Orleans Humming Bird through Turner, Ky., in 1948. A rebuilt heavyweight sleeper trails the original six lightweight cars of the streamliner. L&N photo […]
Great Northern’s postwar streamliners between Seattle and Vancouver, the Internationals, carried 60-seat coaches with a pine-tree motif in their upholstery. GN photo […]
