Handsome Hudson

Streamlined steam locomotive with passenger train at speed

Handsome Hudson For a few years in the late 1930s, the steam queens of New Haven’s Shore Line were 10 class I-5 4-6-4s. The handsome Hudsons’ wheel-balance woes prompted NH to begin acquiring a fleet of 60 DL109 diesels in 1941. Here, an I-5 roars west with the Merchants Limited at Sharon, Mass. Wayne Brumbaugh […]

Read More…

Feather River freight haulers

Feather River freight haulers Western Pacific’s original road freight locomotives were 65 Consolidations; 20 came from Baldwin in 1906, followed by 45 from Alco’s Schenectady plant in 1909. Engine 63 was still on the job at Oakland in 1952. Western Pacific photo […]

Read More…

Three-builder consist

Streamlined and road-switcher diesel locomotives with freight train

Three-builder consist A “we ain’t mad at nobody” diesel consist of F3A/F3B/H24-66/RS3 (that’s two EMDs, an FM Train Master, and an Alco) rolls eastbound freight through Fanwood-Scotch Plains, N.J., in the ’60s. Jim McClellan photo […]

Read More…

Arroyo Seco

Steam locomotive with passenger train on steel viaduct

Arroyo Seco Several miles out of Los Angeles Union Station, Santa Fe 4-8-4 3782 leads the eastbound Chief across the viaduct spanning the Arroyo Seco Parkway. Although Santa Fe abandoned this line through Pasadena, the bridge is still in use by Metrolink light rail trains. Classic Trains collection […]

Read More…

Washington Hill

Steam-powered train passes a diesel-powered train by a semaphore signal

Washington Hill Electro-Motive F3s on a westbound freight wait in the clear at Chester, Mass., for the New England States to pass on its way to Chicago. Pacific 589 assists the States’ road engine, a three-unit Baldwin diesel, up Washington Hill. James D. Bennett photo […]

Read More…

White River Junction

Steam and diesel locomotives with trains in curved yard

White River Junction A steam-powered, heavyweight passenger train passes freight JS4 departing the Boston & Maine’s White River Junction, Vt., yard with an A-B set of F units in 1947. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

Read More…

Train 447

Three diesel locomotives in yard

Train 477 Train 477 out of Chicago holds the westward main track at Butler, Chicago & North Western’s principal Milwaukee-area yard and site of the Wisconsin Division headquarters, in spring 1984. Chris Burger photo […]

Read More…

Ambassador

Diesel powered passenger train on river bridge

Ambassador The northbound day train to Montreal, known as the Ambassador, crosses the Connecticut River near Windsor, Vt. It exemplifies the mixed consist the train carried of Boston & Maine, Central Vermont, and New Haven equipment. […]

Read More…

Train 4

Steam locomotive with passenger train

Train 4 Pere Marquette’s unnamed Grand Rapids–Detroit train 4 rolls through Trowbridge, Mich., in 1940. Locomotive 712 is one of 12 class SP-3 4-6-2 Pacifics built by Alco’s Brooks works in January 1921. Classic Trains collection […]

Read More…

Camelback ‘Comet’

Steam locomotive waits by water tower

Camelback Comet Jersey Central Camelback 592 (now preserved in Baltimore) pinch-hits for a regularly assigned 4-6-2 on the Blue Comet at Hammonton, N.J., in the 1930s. With drivers up to 86 inches, Atlantics ruled on fast trains in the 1890s and 1900s before Pacifics superseded them. Granville Thomas photo […]

Read More…

Passenger Geep

Nose of diesel locomotive in black and white

Passenger Geep Southern Railway GP7 No. 2164 was in local service in eastern North Carolina when this image was made in September 1965. Note the steam generator exhaust stack to the right of the bell. Curt Tillotson Jr. photo […]

Read More…