IC 4-8-2 on the James Whitcomb Riley

20151124

Illinois Central 4-8-2 No. 2452 contrasts with the stainless steel cars of New York Central’s James Whitcomb Riley as the Chicago–Cincinnati streamliner speeds past IC’s 75th Street suburban station on the South Side of Chicago in 1947. The Riley will switch to NYC rails, and power, at Kankakee, Ill. Willard A. Gardner photo […]

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East Broad Top Railroad announces 2022 season

Gas-electric car pulling caboose in snow

ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. – The historic East Broad Top narrow gauge railroad will hold its Winter Spectacular on Feb. 19, and has released dates of other special events and a schedule of regular operation for the 2022 season. EBT Foundation, Inc., the nonprofit organization that bought the railroad in 2020, has laid out its calendar […]

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Steam photographer Mike Eagleson dies

three men standing and posing with tracks in background

GLEN RIDGE, N.J. – Famed steam photographer Michael A. Eagleson, who traveled the world in search of steam power as it retreated from service, died of complications of COVID-19 Jan. 6. He was in his late 70s. Eagleson was famous in the railway and steam locomotive enthusiast community, having traveled worldwide to witness and photograph […]

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Rio Grande M-68 Northern

Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad 4-8-4 near Denver Union Station

Handsome D&RGW 1800, first of the road’s five class M-68 passenger 4-8-4s built by Baldwin in 1938, poses for a broadside portrait near Denver Union Station in August 1940. R. H. Kindig photo […]

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Airborne Challenger

Union Pacific Railroad 4-6-6-4 Challenger wheels

Union Pacific’s 4-6-6-4 Challengers were too long for the turntable at North Platte, Nebr., but they could still use it. Wedges were clamped to the table’s rails at one end, then a 4-6-6-4 was backed on, leaving the rear four wheels of the tender hanging in mid-air. Art Stensvad photo […]

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Classic railroad scene in central Ohio

20180105

In a scene filled with the trappings of classic-era railroading, a Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 clatters across the New York Central at Shelby, Ohio, in September 1955. Today, both lines remain, but the NYC is single track and the depot buildings, water towers, sidetracks, interlocking rods, and express trucks are long gone. Philip R. Hastings […]

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Clinchfield 4-6-6-4 pusher

20180108

Clinchfield Railroad 4-6-6-4 No. 672 lends a hand at the rear of a southbound coal train at Gray, Tenn., on May 28, 1952, not long before the road became 100 percent diesel. The road engine was another Challenger, No. 662. Ed Theisinger photo […]

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News Wire Top 10, No. 4: East Broad Top’s revival continues

Steam locomotive on turntable

ROCKHILL FURNACE, Pa. — The narrow gauge East Broad Top Railroad plans to celebrate 2022 as another milestone – the 150th anniversary of the start of construction in 1872 — with more track restoration and a return to steam-locomotive operation. If 2020 was the year of a miraculous rebirth for the historic south-central Pennsylvania line, […]

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Chicago Great Western Railway locomotives

Red and black diesel locomotives parked on curve

All through December, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the Midwest’s Chicago Great Western Railway. Please enjoy this photo gallery of CGW freight trains selected from the image archives of Kalmbach Media’s David P. Morgan Library. The CGW was considered one of the Granger railroads of the Midwest linking Chicago, St. Paul, and Kansas City. It […]

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Biggest in Canada

20180109

Canadian Pacific 2-10-4 5919 simmers at Field, B.C., before heading east into Kicking Horse Pass with a train. CP’s 2-10-4s were the biggest locomotives in Canada. Albert M. Rich coll. […]

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