Al Perlman buys some RS11s

Two men in front of road-switcher diesel locomotive

With the real thing in the background, New York Central President Alfred Perlman accepts a model of an RS11 from Alco Products Vice President W. A. Callison in June 1957. NYC bought nine of the 1,800 h.p. road-switchers. Alco […]

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Freight train on Tanglefoot Curve

Narrow-gauge freight train on horseshoe curve

A 70-car Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow-gauge freight train drops down famous Tanglefoot Curve, just east of Cumbres, Colo., in June 1960. Since 1960, Cumbres & Toltec tourist trains have plied this landmark. Robert F. Collins […]

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Inside GN’s Red River

Interior view of coach with passengers seated

Great Northern launched its Red River pocket streamliner between Grand Forks, N.Dak., and St. Paul in June 1950, part of the road’s big postwar push for passengers. The coach seats featured a wheat motif on their upholstery. Great Northern […]

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Auto-rack revolution

Automobiles being loaded on tri-level freight cars

By the early 1960s, railroads began reclaiming auto traffic from highway trucks with long two- and three-level auto racks on flatcars. Here, new Thunderbirds and other Fords are loaded aboard a Western Pacific tri-level car built by ACF. American Car & Foundry […]

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Powder River Trickle

A coal train bound for Cohasset, Minnesota

The flood of Powder River Basin coal that became so important to successor Burlington Northern began modestly on NP, with a 1969 contract to move coal from Colstrip, Mont., to Cohasset, Minn. In July 1969, a Cohasset-bound train pauses in Mandan, N.D. Duane Durr collection […]

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Monon RPO

Railway Express Agency truck

A Railway Express Agency truck, along with a cart with milk cans, transfers express into a messenger car, while in the background, mail bags are loaded and unloaded from an RPO car along the Monon in 1948. Photo by Linn Westcott […]

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On calling stations . . . and cows!

Rail motor car departing station

Sixty-odd years ago, I was a youth living in Palmyra, Wis., where my father, Ben Eller Sr., was the station agent for the Milwaukee Road. Palmyra, 42 miles west of Milwaukee, was on the Madison Division, the original line to the state capital via Milton and Janesville. When I was 12, I got braces on […]

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Uncovering a desirable Lionel N5c Pennsy caboose

Lionel O gauge porthole postwar caboose

Lionel porthole caboose origins Lionel’s designers and marketers took significant steps in 1953 to expand and upgrade its roster of O gauge rolling stock. They introduced near-scale freight cars, notably larger and more realistic boxcars and a flatcar. They brought out for the first time a triple-dome tank car. And they distinguished the line with […]

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