New York Central S3 No. 9363 stands on the West Side line in Manhattan in 1967. Thirteen years earlier and 150 miles to the north, the road used another Alco switcher in a novel attempt to capture special-train business. Elliot Kahn, Louis A. Marre coll. In a lifetime of reading about railroading, I’ve seen the […]
Train Topic: Fallen Flags
Fallen flag logos appear on former CSX diesel NEWSWIRE
PRLX SD70ACe No. 4834 featuring Chesapeake & Ohio’s “C&O for Progress” logo leads NS train 36T at Attica, N.Y., on March 29, 2018. The C&O-patched locomotive is a former CSX unit on lease to NS by Progress Rail. BUFFALO, N.Y. – A leased locomotive is roaming Norfolk Southern rails with Chesapeake & Ohio logos this […]
PRR Congressional observation car
During a preview trip, members of the press enjoy one of the new parlor-lounge-observation cars the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired from Budd for the March 1952 re-equipping of the Congressional and Senator. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
The “middle” order
Baldwin road-switcher 1615 passes the Hertford, N.C., depot with Norfolk Southern freight 88 in January 1965. A few months later, removal of a siding here would cause some confusion. Harry Bundy Telegraph operators working from the extra list rolled with the punches. They were on call 24/7, as they say now, to fill vacancies created […]
Book Review: 50 Years-North American Railroads: Vol. 1-The Far West
50 Years-North American Railroads: Vol. 1-The Far West By Don Jocelyn Four Ways West, La Mirada, Calif.; 154 pages, hardcover, $69.95. fourwayswest.com Four Ways West has released the first volume in a new pictorial book series featuring a photographic retrospective of North American railroads during the past 50 years. Volume one looks at the railroads […]
Two big engines that couldn’t
After a 2-10-2 and 4-8-4 stalled on MoPac’s Kirkwood Hill, an 0-8-0 and caboose couple up to render assistance. Joe Collias Heading west from St. Louis, Missouri Pacific trains faced the 6-mile-long, 1-percent grade known as Kirkwood Hill. Normal train length was 100 cars, powered by one of the rebuilt 2101-class 4-8-4s and led by […]
Ewbank gas-electric locomotive
Gene Mendonca’s painting of Ewbank Electric Transmission Co.’s train. Gene Mendonca Q Can you tell me anything about the Ewbank Electric Transmission Co. that is the subject of a picture I painted from a very old newspaper clipping? – Gene Mendonca, Folsom, Calif. A H.B. Ewbank Jr. built No. 333, a 75-foot-long gas-electric locomotive with […]
Former Milwaukee Road cars set to form mini-‘Hiawatha’ in Washington State NEWSWIRE
Former Milwaukee Road cars form the rear of the Empire Builder on Jan. 23 on their way to Washington State for a special excursion. Justin Franz SEATTLE — It’s been 56 years since the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha rolled its last miles through the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, but on Jan. 27 a “mini-Hiawatha” […]
‘Abandoned’ during switching at Jacksonville
Splitting and combining trains was a well-practiced ritual at Jacksonville Union Station. David W. Salter From 1954 until I was 11 years old in 1965, we traveled, by Pullman, from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to North Miami, using either the Seaboard Air Line or Atlantic Coast Line south of Richmond, Va. Until the Florida […]
Last unpatched C&NW locomotives to be repainted UP NEWSWIRE
C&NW Nos. 8701 and 8646 roll intermodal traffic westbound through Rochelle, Ill. earlier this year. Chris Guss NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Union Pacific is on a quest to create a unified fleet of locomotives all wearing its corporate paint scheme, and the two most visual casualties will be Chicago & North Western C44-9Ws Nos. […]
Metra paints Rock Island-inspired unit to honor retiring CEO NEWSWIRE
Metra CHICAGO – Metra has painted a MotivePower MP36PH into the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad’s red and yellow livery in honor of CEO and Executive Director Don Orseno who is retiring this month. Orseno is retiring after 44 years in railroading and first worked for the Rock Island in the 1970s. Locomotive No. […]
Genesis of a debt to be repaid
Before starting their seven-stop trek to Providence, the two Alco PAs on New Haven train 531 prepare to follow the FL9s on the Merchants Limited (left in photo) out of South Station, Boston, in 1961. Chris Burger In the early 1960s, I was a student at Providence College in Rhode Island’s capital city, commuting on […]