The newness of green-and-yellow F2 No. 401 contrasts with the antiquity of the wooden cars as the Atlantic & Eastern Carolina’s daily passenger train crosses the Trent River at New Bern, N.C., in 1946. The 96-mile A&EC had two F units, both F2s. A&EC photo […]
Mail exchange on the fly
A clerk tosses two mail delivery pouches out the door of his speeding Railway Post Office car while simultaneously keeping the catcher arm raised in preparation for snagging outbound mail. This is on the Boston & Maine in the late 1940s. Edward J. Howard Jr. photo […]
M&StL’s North Star Limited
A Pacific is in charge of Minneapolis & St. Louis’s St. Louis–St. Paul North Star Limited between Chaska and Eden Prairie, Minn., in the 1920s or early ’30s. Don Hofsommer collection […]
Lackawanna F3s at East Stroudsburg
An A-B-A set of F3 diesels is on the point of Delaware, Lackawanna & Western train 47, a morning run between Hoboken, N.J., and Binghamton, N.Y., at East Stroudsburg, Pa., in May 1954. Jack Emerick photo […]
King of the Maine two-footers
In 1934 on the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes, largest of the Maine two-foot-gauge railroads, a gasoline railcar and baggage trailer are ready to depart the depot at Strong, while 2-6-2 No. 24 prepares to follow with a freight. Peter Cornwall coll. […]
Railroads that live ‘forever’ … on paper
Like trilobites and brachiopods, the paper carcasses of 19th-century railroads seem forever locked away in the sediments of corporate archives and government files. They fill the pages of old Official Guides and Poor’s Manual of the Railroads by the hundreds. Nearly all of them are dormant — but some are not. Consider the case […]
L&N heavy Mikado
Louisville & Nashville 1807, one of the road’s big fleet of heavy USRS 2-8-2s, moves through Strawberry Yard, south of Louisville, in the late 1940s. Charles B. Castner photo […]
Iowa mixed train
Smack in the middle of the Hawkeye State, Minneapolis & St. Louis 2-6-0 No. 310 crosses the Skunk River with train 342, the return leg of the daily mixed from Marshalltown to Story City, Iowa, in mid-1946. The spindly bridge near Roland necessitated the use of light motive power on the Story City Branch. William F. […]
Fine day on Helmstetter’s Curve
Western Maryland 2-10-0 1109 leads empty coal hoppers and other freight cars west at famous Helmstetter’s Curve on WM’s main line west of Cumberland, Md. Today the right of way hosts Western Maryland Scenic Railway tourist trains and a bike path. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Interstate Consolidation
At Dorchester Junction on southwest Virginia’s coal-hauling Interstate Railroad, Baldwin 2-8-0 No. 2 stands with a caboose. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Icing reefers on the Erie
The Erie’s icing platform at Marion, Ohio, handled a lot of meat and other perishable traffic. Here, carts on the upper-level platform service a pair of Wilson meat reefers. The two Pacific Fruit Express reefers at right will receive chunk ice from the main platform. A large ice plant is in the background. Erie Railroad photo […]
GM&O on the eve of merger
Gulf, Mobile & Ohio GP30 502 leads southbound freight 33 south of Pomona, Ill., in December 1971, ten months before GM&O’s merger with Illinois Central. Steven Mueller photo […]