Rumors of the death of railroad fiction are greatly exaggerated. The veteran railroad journalist Fred Frailey made that clear a year ago with his “Seldom Willing,” an absorbing tale of an ambitious 1980s Midwestern regional railroad that outmaneuvered a far larger rival. When Fred told me his novel was coming out soon, I wasn’t sure […]
Missouri Pacific 0-8-0 No. 9721 (with caboose) helps a freight No. 75 up Kirkwood (Mo.) Hill in March 1946. Regular power was 4-8-4 No. 2111 closest to the camera. Helper 2-10-2 No. 1716 is spliced between. Joe Collias photo […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A preservation project in the community known as “Music City” has added some appropriate individuals to its board of directors. The Nashville Steam Preservation Society, the non-profit organization working to restore Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis 4-8-4 No. 576, announced last week that it had added Harry Stinson and Jeff Syracuse to […]
CALGARY, Alberta — CPKC has released a more detailed schedule of dates, display times, and locations for its Final Spike Steam Tour, the three-nation trip featuring CP 4-6-4 No. 2816 to mark the first year of the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. The trip begins April 24 in Calgary with a display […]
New York Central J-1 4-6-3 5403 accelerates toward 85 mph with a mail-and-express train heading west out of Mattoon, Ill., in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
DURANGO, Colo. — The final chapter of the long history of coal-powered trains on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad came Saturday, March 23, with a round-trip excursion between Durango and Cascade, Colo., handled by a Baldwin Class K-36 2-8-2 No. 481. The locomotive will now be converted to oil firing, completing conversion of […]
MINERSVILLE, Pa. — Railway Project 113, the group that has restored Central of New Jersey 0-6-0 No. 113 to operation, will be operating the train for six trips on May 18 as part of Minersville’s first Community Day. Trips will operate from the Minersville station to Reading Anthracite’s New St. Nicholas Breaker and return. The […]
New York Central J-1 4-6-4 5344 starts the Detroit-bound Twilight Limited out of Englewood Union Station on Chicago’s South Side in November 1939. Paul Eilenberger photo […]
If there’s one thing you could never accuse the late Jerry Joe Jacobson of, it was thinking small. At every turn in his remarkable career as a railroader and preservationist, he went big. Really big. When he got started in the shortline business 40 years ago, he began with a modest 35-mile former New York […]
Although the 2-4-2 type was rare in the United States, Berlin Mills Railway 2-4-2T No. 6, built by Baldwin for the New Hampshire switching road, is typical of the smaller steam locomotives used for switching around sawmills and paper mills. Matt Coleman collection […]
From short lines to the Class I railroads, chances are you’ll come across a mainline steam excursion with one or more non-passenger railcars near the front of the train (sometimes coupled directly behind the locomotive). They’re carrying, as the name implies, tools and more to support the steam locomotive when out on the road and […]
The railroad at a glance Railway name: Dunckley Northern Railway (DNR) Size of railroad: Covering an odd shaped garden approximately 70′ x 70′ Scale: 1:24 Gauge: 45mm for 3’6″ gauge and 64mm for standard gauge Era: Late 1930s Theme: The DNR is a colonial railway in an undisclosed country. The Consolidated Concentrates Conglomerate (CCC) branch […]
