A hostler tops off the fuel tank of an Illinois Central E unit at the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal locomotive facility in 1954. The E unit will go out later on the Panama Limited to Chicago. Photo by James G. La Vake […]
Section: Photo of the Day
Pullman on a turntable
Central Vermont 0-8-0 501 stands by as a New Haven sleeping car is turned on the turntable at St. Albans, Vermont, in September 1955. Photo by Philip R. Hastings […]
Pride of the Pennsy
The westbound Broadway Limited is just a few miles from its destination as it pauses at Englewood Union Station on the South Side of Chicago in 1933. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s premier train traded its heavyweight cars for streamlined equipment in 1938. Photo by Rail Photo Service […]
Prairie tanks for the Doughboys
At least eight 60-centimeter-guage 2-6-2Ts of the type used by the U.S. Army on temporary railways in France during World War I are visible in this scene at Fort Benning, Georgia, after the war. Baldwin, Davenport, and Vulcan built some 296 of the diminutive engines. Fort Benning’s 27-mile line moved men and material around the […]
Mount Clare makes a Mountain
Between 1942 and ’48, Baltimore & Ohio’s Mount Clare shops in Baltimore created 40 essentially new dual-service 4-8-2s. The class T-3 Mountain types were “essentially” new because their boilers came from retired Mikados and Pacifics. Here, the first T-3, No. 5555, nears completion. Photo by Baltimore & Ohio […]
Mohawk at Waterloo
New York Central 4-8-2 2952 storms through Waterloo, Indiana, 367 miles west of Buffalo, with a westbound freight in 1948. NYC called its 600 4-8-2s “Mohawks” after the river the road’s main line followed across New York state. Photo by Robert A. Hadley […]
“Modern” reefer of the 1920s
Pacific Fruit Express was co-owned by Union Pacific and Southern Pacific. This 40-foot class R-30-12 car, built in 1923, had a wood body and steel underframe. It was typical of the thousands of “modern” refrigerator cars through the 1930s. Photo by Standard Steel Car Co. […]
Milwaukee’s “Viroqua Patrol”
Alco RSD5 572 leads the Milwaukee Road’s local freight to Sparta and Viroqua, Wisconsin, out of La Crosse in October 1971. At right is Grand Crossing tower, guardian of a tangle of tracks that includes the Chicago–Twin Cities main lines of MILW and Burlington Northern. Photo by J. W. Schultz […]
Milwaukee Road “Touralux” sleeper
In artwork promoting the Milwaukee Road’s 1947 Olympian Hiawatha, Mom says goodnight to Jimmy and Sally in the upper and lower berths of a section in a new “Touralux” car. Specially built for the Olympian Hi, the Touralux sleepers contained 14 extra-roomy, semi-private sections. Photo by Milwaukee Road […]
Long-running success
Electro-Motive’s four-wheel road-diesel truck, named for the mechanical engineer who designed it, Martin Blomberg, was introduced on the NW3 and FT models of 1939. Since then the Blomberg truck has been used under tens of thousands of diesels, including new models introduced more than 75 years later. Photo by Classic Trains collection […]
Landmark trailing truck
The trailing truck for Lima’s 1925 demonstrator locomotive No. 1, the first 2-8-4 Berkshire type, featured four wheels to support the engine’s large firebox — a major advance in steam design. The piping was for a booster engine which drove the truck’s rear axle. Photo by Lima Locomotive Works […]
Interstate Alco
One of the Interstate Railroad’s ten Alco RS3 diesel locomotives switches hopper cars in the road’s yard at Andover, Virginia, in May 1960. The 88-mile coal-hauler’s diesels wore a colorful gray-orange-silver scheme. The Southern Railway bought the Interstate in June 1961. Photo by Steve Patterson […]