Kansas City Southern Railway Kansas City Southern, which began as the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gulf in 1890, was completed to the Gulf of Mexico in 1897. The KCS name dates from a turn-of-the-century reorganization in which founder Arthur Stilwell was ousted. KCS acquired Louisiana & Arkansas in 1939, and remained a stable mid-sized system […]
Operational organization of Mexican railroads from 1960 to 1987 Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (NdeM) División de Cárdenas División del Centro, Subdivisión de Aguascalientes División del Centro, Subdivisión de Durango División del Golfo División de Guadalajara División de Jalapa División de Mérida (ex-FC Unidos del Sureste) División de Mexicano (ex-FC Mexicano) División de México, Subdivisión de […]
Norfolk Southern Railway Norfolk Southern Corp. was created as a new holding company to acquire Norfolk & Western Railway and Southern Railway, effected June 1, 1982. Full merger effected Dec. 31, 1990, as N&W became a subsidiary of Southern, and Southern changed its name to Norfolk Southern Railway. Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation) After the failure […]
Pan Am Railways In March of 2006, Guilford Transportation Industries’ rail properties were rebranded under the name Pan Am Railways, sharing the trade name of the well-known airline, which GTI had purchased out of bankruptcy in 1998 and continues to operate under the Pan Am brand. Guilford Rail System Guilford Transportation Industries dates from 1977, […]
Union Pacific Railroad Union Pacific has the right name-it’s the last major U.S. rail system whose name has never changed, dating from its charter in 1862 to build the nation’s first transcontinental westward from Omaha, Nebraska. Construction began in 1865, and was completed on May 10, 1869. Also notable for their longevity are Union Pacific’s […]
It was December 2005 when I wrote the rough draft of my story on using GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) to help when chasing trains in unfamiliar lands. Between that time and the time the article appeared in the July 2006 issue of Trains, I kept an eye on the advertisements from national electronic retailers (Best […]
Pennsylvania HO K4 Pacific This powerful HO scale model of the Pennsylvania RR’s classic K4 Pacific is MTH Electric Trains’ first HO scale locomotive. It has a long list of features, including properly timed smoke and sound effects and an automatic electronic system that operates on layouts using DC, Digital Command Control (DCC), or the […]
In his article “Nine Decades in the Service of Steam” in the Summer 2004 issue of Classic Trains magazine, James A. Brown looks at the final, glorious years of Stratford Big Shop, Canadian National’s last steam-locomotive overhaul facility. Below is a PDF that includes the layout of the Canadian National Stratford Shop. Please note that […]
Modern railroad dispatching systems and movement controls have evolved by trial and error into a two-tier system of centralized dispatching and trackside signaling. But while the physical means of controlling traffic converged on a few types of lineside signal equipment – semaphores, position-lights, searchlights, etc. – the colors and arrangements (“aspects”) they presented, and the […]
Caboose For more than a century, the caboose was a fixture at the end of every freight train in America. Like the red schoolhouse and the red barn, the red caboose became an American icon. Along with its vanished cousin the steam locomotive, the caboose evokes memories of the golden age of railroading. There are […]
Say you’re an engineer running a multi-unit diesel consist on a freight train. During the trip, it becomes necessary to remove the lead unit because of a grade-crossing entanglement, some mechanical problem, or to give to another (underpowered) train. No problem – the second unit can lead as well as the first, so you resume […]
Who controls the movement of the trains after the tower is closed? The train dispatcher is the most common heir to the towerman’s duties, but not always. The type of control used depends on the nature and density of the rail traffic handled at the location. Ways to preventing trains from colliding when railroad lines […]
