Tourist railroads in the Midwestern United States

Midwest tourist railroads you must visit include massive museums, mainline steam excursions, and everything in between. From Trains Magazine’s Tourist Trains Guidebook, here’s our list of tourist railroads, museums, and displays to experience across the region. Midwest Tourist Railroads and Museums Illinois Illinois Railway Museum – 7000 Olson Road, Union The Illinois Railway Museum certainly […]

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BNSF union-management safety agreement reduces injuries and derailments

FORT WORTH, Texas — A year-old partnership between BNSF Railway and three of its labor unions has dramatically reduced injuries and derailments. The Transportation Safety Agreement between BNSF and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, SMART-TD, and Transportation Communications Union was ratified early in 2022 and mostly covers southern portions of the railway. The […]

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Tourist railroads in the Southeastern United States

Southeast tourist railroads you must visit include museums full of regional history, logging railroads in the Allegheny Mountains, and everything in between. From Trains Magazine’s Tourist Trains Guidebook, here’s our list of tourist railroads, museums, and displays to experience across the region. Southeast Tourist Railroads and Museums Alabama Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum – 1919 […]

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Bicentennial Santa Fe locomotive to make California public debut

LOS ANGELES — Santa Fe No. 5704, the SD45-2 locomotive cosmetically restored to its bicentennial paint scheme, will make its California public debut at Los Angeles Union Station’s Train Festival 2023: A Celebration of Past, Present & Future on September 9-10. The locomotive, which was donated by BNSF to the Southern California Railway Museum in […]

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Colorado tourist railroads you must visit

The history and adventure of Rocky Mountain railroading is waiting to be explored in Colorado – both in standard and narrow gauge. From Trains Magazine‘s Tourist Trains Guidebook, here are the tourist railroads, museums and historic sites you must visit across the Centennial State! Colorado Tourist Railroads and Museums Denver Metro Colorado Railroad Museum – […]

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Vermont Rail System recovers from flood damage

Vermont Rail System was hit as hard as its namesake state by storms early this week, but the company is beginning to get a handle on the damage. “I am feeling better today than I did yesterday,” president Selden Houghton said in a a telephone interview today (July 12) with Trains News Wire. VRS received […]

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Building a train schedule

Did you ever wonder how a railroad goes about building a train schedule? It’s more complex than you may think. Train schedules have intrigued me since my father returned from a 1966 business trip with a present of current public timetables from 13 railroads. To 11-year-old me the timetables were like windows to a new […]

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Blue Streak Merchandise

Was the Blue Streak Merchandise the last Great American Freight Train?     “You define a passenger train by its cars, its menu, its route — even its patrons,” says railroad historian Fred W. Frailey in his 1991 book on the Blue Streak. “But the Blue Streak defined the railroads over which it runs — seized […]

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Can CPKC’s hydrogen fuel cell locomotives doom the diesel?

KANSAS CITY — You know the story: In November 1939 Electro-Motive FT No. 103 embarked on an 11-month, 83,764-mile demonstration tour on some of the toughest territory that American railroads could throw at the 5,400 horsepower, four-unit locomotive set. In test runs with freight and passenger trains, the experimental diesel-electric proved itself superior to even […]

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