Famed photographer Shaughnessy dies NEWSWIRE

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Jim Shaughnessey, shown in 2002 at Enola, Pa. Robert S. McGonigal TROY, N.Y. – Of all the pioneers who revolutionized railroad photography in the postwar decades, few equal the status of Jim Shaughnessy, one of the deans of the field, especially as measured by his powerful images from the steam-to-diesel era of the 1950s and […]

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Historic photos, ceremonial spikes featured in transcontinental railroad anniversary exhibit NEWSWIRE

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Andrew J. Russell (American, 1830-1902), East and West Shaking Hands at Laying Last Rail, 1869, albumen print. The ceremony spotlighted Union Pacific locomotive No. 119 meeting Central Pacific locomotive Jupiter. From left, shaking hands, are Samuel S. Montague, chief engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, and General Grenville M. Dodge, chief engineer of the Union […]

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Telegrapher at Wilbur

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Although author Dinsmore’s territory was some 1,500 miles to the west, this 1966 scene inside Northern Pacific’s depot in South Superior, Wis., would be familiar to him. William D. Middleton When I picked up Classic Trains’ Summer 2008 issue, the cover blurb about the “Kid Telegrapher on NP’s Idaho Division” caught my eye. I searched out the […]

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New life for Detroit’s Michigan Central Station

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DETROIT – The news this week that the Ford Motor Co. has purchased Detroit’s crumbling but historic Michigan Central Station indicates a happy ending for one of America’s most notoriously neglected big-city train stations. Ford purchased the building from the Manuel Moroun family, billionaire owners of a trucking and logistics empire, which includes the Ambassador […]

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Watermelon Extra

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Russell Tedder’s 16-hour 70-tonner ride occurred in July 1955, when he was dispatching for the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf and South Georgia, two affiliated short lines recently acquired by the Southern Railway. Watermelons were an important source of revenue for the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf and South Georgia in the early 1950s. The […]

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Polishing the rails for General Electric

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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 […]

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Pennsy T1 comes to life in a St. Louis shop

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ST. LOUIS – Gary Bensman walks through Continental Fabricators in St. Louis, holding a washout plug for the boiler of Pennsylvania Railroad T1 No. 5550. Bensman grips the plug much like a judge would hold a gavel, as he holds court over the fabrication of the boiler for a locomotive class whose last member of […]

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