A crewman climbs aboard Chicago & North Western class H No. 3017 on Nov. 17, 1929, six days after the 4-8-4 arrived from Baldwin. The engine is being broken in on the main line west of Chicago. A. W. Johnson photo […]
Brand-new C&NW class H
Almost a road-switcher
Missouri Pacific 4102 and 4103 were Electro-Motive’s only model NW4 locomotives. Built in 1938 using 900 h.p. Winton 201A engines, road trucks, and other components from experimental box-cab passenger units 511 and 512, the steam-generator-equipped diesels possessed some of the characteristics of a road-switcher. Electro-Motive photo […]
UP’s ‘Los Angeles Limited’
On the eastern fringes of the Los Angeles area, a Union Pacific freight train is safely in a siding for a meet with train 1, the westbound Los Angeles Limited, powered by 4-8-4 No. 821 in the road’s postwar “greyhound” paint scheme. Fletcher Swan photo […]
Spokane Portland and Seattle passenger trains
Spokane Portland and Seattle passenger trains: All through August 2022, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the history and heritage of Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway. The Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway was the product of sparring during 1905-1909 between “Empire Builder” James J. Hill of the Great Northern and Edward H. Harriman of the Union […]
Pennsy Santa train ride
Pennsy Santa train ride: There is an indelible link between kids, trains, and Christmas; even the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad found a way to offer a Santa train ride to kids. Growing up in 1950s Fort Wayne, Ind., I remember the Pennsylvania Railroad as a prominent player in the city’s life. Also prominent was Fort […]
Early Amtrak electric locomotives
Amtrak electric locomotives went through a period of uncertainty early in the passenger railroad’s existence. Not long after its inception, Amtrak began to focus on the fact that its non-Metroliner passenger service in the “Northeast Corridor” would require a replacement for the stalwart GG1 electrics that hauled its “conventional” trains over the electrified […]
Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway remembered
The Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway was the product of sparring during 1905-1909 between “Empire Builder” James J. Hill of the Great Northern and Edward H. Harriman of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific, by which Hill’s GN, as well as Northern Pacific (which Hill controlled at the time), got much-improved access to Portland, while […]
Rock Island FA diesel
Rock Island FA diesels 151 and 145 doublehead with 4-8-4 5119 on a westbound freight at Joliet, Ill., in fall 1951. The train is passing JD tower, where RI crossed the Santa Fe and GM&O. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
E7 on B&M’s Mountaineer
Brand-new E7 3810 leads Boston & Maine’s Mountaineer out of Boston in June 1946. The diesel illustrates the as-delivered scheme of B&M’s E7’s, with silver at the rear of the maroon and yellow carbody. Albert G. Hale photo […]
Doubleheaded MoPac Berkshires
Two of Missouri Pacific’s 25 2-8-4 Berkshires, built by Lima in 1935, get under way with a freight at St. Louis. H. F. Harvey coll. […]
DL109’s with New Haven’s Merchants Limited
Two Alco DL109’s roll the New Haven’s crack New York–Boston Merchants Limited through East Haven, Conn., in mid-1947. The last all-parlor-car train in the U.S., the Merchants got coaches in 1949. T. J. Donahue photo […]
NYC’s Mercury departs Chicago
In Chicago, trains of New York Central subsidiary Michigan Central generally used Illinois Central’s lakefront Central Station. Here a Hudson starts the Chicago Mercury on its run to Detroit. The terminal’s arched trainshed was removed in the early 1940s. Richard Luryman photo […]
