Three of Pacific Electric’s big interurban cars, known as “Blimps” for their great size, lay over at Long Beach circa 1950. Linn H. Westcott photo […]
Pacific Electric “Blimps”
Section: Railroads
Action at Aurora
At the Burlington Route’s station in Aurora, Ill., on a February 1946 day, Pacific 2850 pulls away from a string of suburban cars as two trains stand on other tracks. In the middle is a 22-car empty troop train waiting for a locomotive to take it west, while at left is the eastbound North Coast […]
A rare 0-10-2 Union type
Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range 605 simmers at Proctor, Minn., on a September 1954 night. She’s a rare 0-10-2, of which only nine were built, all for Pittsburgh’s Union Railroad, in 1936-37. They came to sister U.S. Steel road DM&IR in 1949. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Norfolk & Western Railway freight trains
Classic Trains editors are celebrating the history, heritage, and style of the Norfolk & Western Railway all through January 2022. Please enjoy this photo gallery of Norfolk & Western freight trains selected from the archives of Kalmbach Media’s David P. Morgan Library. The Norfolk & Western was a coal-oriented road linking Cincinnati and Columbus with […]
Olympian Hi in Montana
One of the Milwaukee Road’s six Skytop sleeper-observation cars brings up the rear of the Olympian Hiawatha near Francis, Mont., 100 miles east of Butte, in an early 1950s publicity photo. MILW photo […]
Erie bay-window caboose
Modern steel cabooses, such as Erie bay-window C300 in 1953, included such improvements as on-board radio (with RADIO EQUIPPED lettering and lightning bolts) and electric lighting (note the generator below and to the right of the bay). Erie photo […]
Freight on the “WAG”
Wellsville, Addison & Galeton GE center-cab diesel 1700 has a string of the colorful short line’s wood boxcars in tow at Ansonia, Pa., in March 1970. David H. Hamley photo […]
CNJ Camelback 757
Central Railroad of New Jersey Camelback 4-6-0 No. 757 accelerates a train out of the Jersey City terminal complex in the late 1940s or early ’50s. William R. Frutchey photo […]
When I cast my ballot for the RS3
Nickel Plate 535 and 555 make a persuasive case for the RS3 as they accelerate east at Malinta, Ohio, in 1960. J. David Ingles Many of us who cotton to such things probably can pinpoint the exact time, or place, where we realized we had a favorite locomotive type. For me, the locomotive was the […]
California Zephyr on a detour
The California Zephyr shares dual-gauge trackage with a Rio Grande 2-8-0 at Salida, Colo., on June 18, 1951. The CZ shouldn’t be here on D&RGW’s Tennessee Pass line — it’s detouring around a washout on its regular Moffat Tunnel route. Bob Borcherding photo […]
Historic diesel locomotives saved by the 2020s
Historic diesel locomotives saved by the 2020s may be an odd lot of famous and barely memorable, but these units deserve our respect and attention just as much as the first batch. All of these, even the ones that proved to be technological dead ends, contributed in one way or another to the advancement and […]
CB&Q’s Fast Mail at Burlington
Three Burlington Route E units are refueled at Burlington, Iowa, during their nighttime dash from Chicago to Omaha with the Fast Mail. CB&Q photo […]
