Electric railroads served a variety of purposes in North America: carrying commuters, industrial switching, and mainline freight and passenger service. From coal-hauling, six-axle, red-white-and-blue motors in British Columbia to plain green electric m.u. cars in New Jersey, there can be broad interest in electric railroads. Noted railfan Matthew Herson has lended his photographic collection […]
Gulf Mobile and Ohio remembered: The “modern merger movement” is often said to have begun in 1957 when Louisville & Nashville absorbed the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, in which the L&N had a three-quarters ownership. Some would argue that three similar 1947 mergers — Denver & Salt Lake into Denver & Rio Grande Western; […]
Six axle comfort cabs on shortlines: Comfort cabs took North America by storm in the late 1980s with the introduction of the design on EMDs’ SD60M and GE’s C40-8W. While Canadian operators had been using the design since the early 1970s on both four and six-axle locomotives, it wasn’t until the SD60M and C40-8W arrived […]
Baltimore & Ohio P-7 Pacific 5305 passes through the interlocking at Halethorpe, Md., as semaphore signals are being replaced by color position light signals. Warren E. Olt photo […]
Steeple-cab motors 604 and 603 prepare to pull cars off Sacramento Northern’s ferry Ramon at Mallard, Calif., on the south shore of Suisun Bay in 1951. Reginald McGovern photo […]
Engine crewmen confer beside the cab ladder as the two Fairbanks-Morse diesels heading Milwaukee Road’s eastbound Olympian Hiawatha are fueled and watered during a passenger and service stop at Miles City, Mont., in the late 1940s or early ’50s. Don E. Wolter photo […]
L&N freight No. 66 is just two miles out of its initial terminal at Norton, Va., as the Interstate Railroad’s First Hill Crew, using diesels from parent Southern Railway, waits in the clear at Dorchester Junction, Va., on May 10, 1967. When the L&N train clears, the Southern EMDs will cross over to pull the […]
Digital or film railroad photography? Before the advent of digital technology, the photographic standard of our hobby was transparency, or slide film. While multiple manufacturers guaranteed the user the desired color temperature and punchiness, the preferred emulsions were the various flavors of Kodachrome and Fujichrome. The former was prized for its “pop,” particularly on bright, […]
Changing a locomotive headlight: Everything we do on the railroad is guided by FRA standards and practices. According to the portion of federal law that governs railroads – 49 CFR § 229.125 – every lead locomotive used in road service shall illuminate its headlight while the locomotive is in use. If a road unit is […]
Join me in early mid-March, beside Amtrak City of New Orleans at Chebanse, Ill., a few weeks ahead of farmer’s spring planting — about 70 miles south of Chicago. It’s a breezy, crisp early morning before sunrise. The camera’s ISO is notched up to 2500. A lamp brightens the interior of the Chebanse depot, but […]
Silence on railfan photo lines is growing in importance as technology evolves and we find new, exciting ways to capture the essence of railroading when participating in rail photography charters. Those of us more enamored with still photography than videography may need to dial in on our photo line etiquette in consideration of how these […]
On Aug. 5, 1958, the last Maryland & Pennsylvania train from Baltimore heads north across the trestle at Sharon, Md., shortly before the road abandoned the south half of its 77-mile line between Baltimore & York, Pa. Lawrence W. Sagle photo […]
