A Chicago-bound local of interurban Chicago Aurora & Elgin prepares to leave the Wheaton station. The first car is one of 10 built for CA&E in 1945, among the last interurban cars built. William D. Middleton photo […]
CA&E train at Wheaton
A brief encounter with Argent Lumber
If you’re driving on Main Street through Hardeeville, S.C., it’s easy to miss the little steam locomotive tucked away in a small open shelter alongside the city’s library. As engines go, it doesn’t get much smaller than Argent Lumber Co. narrow-gauge 2-8-0 No. 7. I found the engine, though, during a brief stop last […]
Missouri Pacific pumpkin pie
Missouri Pacific pumpkin pie is a delicious variation of a holiday favorite. It includes molasses, which makes the pie a darker orange color. I cut back the sugar a bit from the original recipe, as I didn’t want it to be overly sweet. The original ingredients also included dots of butter, which I omitted as […]
Classic Trains, Spring 2023
[…]
President Grant on the march
Seen from a troop train out of Fort Meade, Md., Baltimore & Ohio 4-6-2 5316, formerly named President Grant, hurries east with Cumberland–Baltimore passenger local No. 34 near Rockville, Md., in May 1953. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
“Big Emma” helping a coal train
Louisville & Nashville M-1 2-8-4 1954 (a “Big Emma”) pushes behind the caboose of a northbound coal train on the big Red River bridge south of Winchester, Ky., in May 1952. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Lehigh Valley locomotives remembered
Lehigh Valley locomotives were known by the road’s early Cornell red and black paint scheme. Later, units carried gray-and-yellow and white-and-black colors. The Lehigh Valley dieselized with EMD FTs and F3s and Alco FAs (the last steam ran in 1951), and remained a prolific Alco customer through the 1960s. For a small railroad, the LV […]
EMD NW3 locomotive: A diesel that didn’t
The EMD NW3 locomotive was the builder’s first entry into the eventually lucrative road switcher category, although it was intended as a passenger terminal switcher. Locomotive builders can be inconsistent when it comes to aesthetics. EMD, which on one hand could create stylish, wind-splitting passenger units would, if the situation warranted, produce some […]
Best-selling Fairbanks-Morse diesel locomotives
The best-selling Fairbanks-Morse diesel locomotives came from the builder’s “H” series of hood units. Even though Fairbanks-Morse built relatively few diesels compared to EMD or Alco, FM locomotives have a solid following among railfans. They were known for being rugged, excellent-pulling locomotives, in spite of their temperamental opposed-piston engines. Fairbanks-Morse chose to develop […]
Amtrak F40PH locomotives
Amtrak F40PH locomotives are considered the standard passenger motive power for the 1980s and early 1990s. The four-axle, 3,000-hp units are mechanically identical to the much more common GP40-2 freight locomotive, which also use the 16-645E prime mover. In fact, the F40PH was EMD’s first production passenger locomotive to use this prime mover. (Other F40PH […]
Most successful articulated locomotive: The 4-6-6-4 Challenger
The 4-6-6-4 Challenger was the most successful articulated steam locomotive design. Rating steam locomotives is a risky business. You might easily compare engines by weight or length or lists of accessories, but actual performance — judged by the engineering standards of 2023 — is somewhat subjective. It would be an exaggeration to say […]
Lehigh Valley Railroad remembered
Without an ampersand, directional vector, or superlative in its title, the Lehigh Valley Railroad was of understated geographical reach. Its 440-mile New York-Buffalo line was slightly longer than competing routes of the Erie, New York Central, and Lackawanna, but shorter than the Pennsylvania’s. LV’s earliest component dated to 1836, but “the Valley” owed its existence […]
