‘Rail to Trail’

20190930

A stagecoach, steam locomotive, and F7 in Southern Pacific’s “black widow” paint scheme gather at a “Rail to Trail” pageant in Sacramento, Calif., celebrating the 100th anniversary of SP’s earliest predecessor, the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which began operation in 1856. Southern Pacific photo […]

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Sharks on the Monongahela

20180808

Two Baldwin RF16 “Sharknose” diesels of the Monongahela Railroad lug a train of empty coal hoppers along the carrier’s namesake river at Alicia, Pa., in the late 1960s. The ex-New York Central units later went to the Delaware & Hudson and for decades have been privately owned and stored at Escanaba, Mich. David H. Hamley […]

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Santa Fe’s celebrity PAs

20180820

Alco and Santa Fe pulled out all the stops when the road bought the first of the builder’s 2,000 h.p. postwar passenger diesels that came to be known as “PAs” (and “PBs” for booster units). Carrying ATSF road number 51, the brand-new three-unit locomotive heads a train down California’s Cajon Pass in October 1946. Santa […]

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Oil train on Cranberry Grade

20180828

Two 2-8-8-0 Mallets assist a train of oil-laden tank cars up Baltimore & Ohio’s 2.4-percent Cranberry Grade to Terra Alta, W.Va., in the early 1940s. The train has four of B&O’s distinctive “wagon top” cabooses, three of which presumably are deadheading. Classic Trains coll. […]

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NYC’s Riley on the IC

20180815

New York Central’s Chicago–Cincinnati streamliner, the James Whitcomb Riley, speeds past Illinois Central’s suburban-train station at 75th Street on the South Side of Chicago in 1947. The Riley left from IC’s Central Station on the lakefront and switched to NYC rails at Kankakee. Willard A. Gardner photo […]

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Morning Zephyr in the snow

20180823

Burlington Route’s Chicago–Minneapolis Morning Zephyr forges west at Downers Grove, Ill., on a snowy January 13, 1948. The six-car train carries four dome cars, including a dome-observation. CB&Q photo […]

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Meet on the Rio Grande

20180814

D&RGW SD40T-2s on a coal drag off the Craig Branch hold the main line for a meet with westbound freight No. 83 at Yarmony, a few miles east of Bond, Colo., in June 1976. Richard Loveman photo […]

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Last gasp of PRR steam

20180831

Pennsylvania Railroad B6sb 0-6-0 5244 simmers inside the road’s roundhouse at Camden, N.J., on October 4, 1958. PRR stopped using steam locomotives nearly a year previously, but 5244 hung on until mid-1959 on lease to New Jersey short line Union Transportation Co. Frank Kozempel photo […]

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Last and heaviest 2-10-2

20180508

The Reading’s 20 class K-1sb locomotives, constructed by Baldwin in 1931 and tipping the scales at a whopping 451,000 pounds, were the last-built and heaviest 2-10-2s in North America. Here, No. 3012 leads a train of anthracite down the Schuylkill River near Tamaqua, Pa., in July 1953. Classic Trains coll. […]

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Inside a CN caboose

20180813

Safe from the frigid weather outside, the conductor of a Canadian National freight train examines his wheel reports as his brakeman takes a break for tea inside their caboose in New Brunswick in 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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