Soo Line passenger trains remembered

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Soo Line passenger trains were simple affairs serving wide swaths of the rural Upper Midwest.     While passenger service was not a big part of Soo’s business, the road strived to maintain quality service, and with partner CP, offered Canadian connections. In 1889 MStP&SSM inaugurated the Minneapolis-Sault Ste. Marie Atlantic Limited, among the first […]

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Former Cotton Belt Consolidation

20150506

Southern Pacific 2864 was one of eight 2-8-0s transferred to California from SP affiliate Cotton Belt in 1956. Built during 1920–23, SSW’s 36 700-series engines were the road’s top freight power until 4-8-4s came in 1930. SP 2864 stands at San Francisco in April ’56. D. S. Richter photo […]

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Champion at Richmond

20150504

Having arrived from Washington behind Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac E8s, the Miami-bound East Coast Champion stands at Richmond’s Broad Street Station with a fresh set of Atlantic Coast Line E units. William D. Middleton photo […]

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UP diesel and steam in Idaho

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In the early 1950s, Union Pacific F3 units in A-B-B formation lead freight train 257 west up the nearly 2 percent grade to Reverse, Idaho, on the road’s main line to Portland, Ore.; 107 cars to the rear, two 2-8-8-0s assist the diesels. Henry R. Griffiths Jr. photo […]

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Great American Steam Locomotives: Articulateds DVD Trailer

Great American Steam Locomotives: Articulateds DVD | 16126 The Articulateds are the largest steam locomotives ever built. Starting as slow speed monsters hauling heavy trains over mountain ridges, they became a regular feature of many of the largest Class 1 railroads, handling everything from slow drag freights, to fast time freights, and even were able […]

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SP steam survivor

20180530

Southern Pacific 2-8-0 3406 works mixed train No. 1 on the Nacozari Railroad between Douglas, Ariz., and Nacozari, Mexico, in spring 1958. Steam lasted on the SP subsidiary until January 1959, two years after diesels took over the rest of the SP system. Donald Duke photo […]

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Santa Fe’s “Madam Queen”

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Santa Fe 5000, built by Baldwin in 1930, was the road’s first 2-10-4 designed as such. (One member of the road’s 3800 class of 2-10-2s was built in 1919 with a four-wheel trailing truck.) Nicknamed “Madam Queen” after a comic strip character, No. 5000 laid the groundwork for the greatly enhanced 5001 class of 1938. […]

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RS1 in the roundhouse

20180503

With seemingly every one of its hood doors open, Washington Terminal RS1 No. 54 stands inside the roundhouse in the city’s Ivy City section one night in June 1960. Jim Shaughnessy photo […]

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New Mexico mail pickup

20180522

The combined eastbound Super Chief/El Capitan approaches the mail crane at Los Cerrillos, N.Mex., on the Santa Fe in January 1962. In the train’s Railway Post Office car, a clerk is ready to snag the pouch. Clinton W. Morgan Jr. photo […]

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