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Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes 2-foot-gauge Mogul No. 16 pokes out of the covered depot at Kingfield, Maine. Charlie French, Mallory Hope Ferrell coll. While still a teenager in the early 1950s, I corresponded with a man who had grown up on the 2-foot-gauge lines of Maine. Arthur French, by then elderly, collected Indian Head […]
A 1962 freight derailment spelled the end for the century-old Wabash depot at little Philo, Ill. Glen Brewer My clock-radio came on at the usual morning hour with the local news. The date was Wednesday, October 3, 1962. The announcer reported a train wreck in Philo, Ill., the previous evening, blocking the Wabash Railroad’s main […]
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Horseshoe Curve, 1940: Freight on track 1, passenger on track 2, smoke from a train climbing on track 3 or 4. H. W. Pontin You could not avoid liking my uncle, Matthew McGrail. Matt was a medical doctor in Bradford, Pa., by profession, but he was a full-time rail enthusiast. He befriended many crews of […]
CANON CITY, Colo. – Canon City & Royal Gorge Railroad has scrapped the last remaining Denver & Rio Grande Western EMD SD9, No. 5305. It was cut up as part of a deal the tourist line made for a newer locomotive. No. 5305 was built in July 1957, part of an order for 10 SD9s, […]
The Santa Fe was a class act, from its Warbonnet diesels to how it dealt with derailments. Gordon Glattenberg Back in 1955, when I was 22, I gained my first post-college newspaper reporting job with the Avalanche-Journal in Lubbock, Texas—not exactly the center of the railroad universe. Little did I know that within a few […]
Boston & Maine 4-6-2 3719 was one of the machines that captivated author Graulty. Charles A. Brown I was always fascinated by machines. When I was a boy during the Depression, the most impressive machinery I got to see was steam locomotives. I grew up in Troy, N.Y., on the Hudson River 150 miles north […]
In February 1944, Katy 2-8-2 910 rolls into Denton, Texas, with empty tank cars, probably destined for a refill in the Oklahoma oil fields. Frank Rogers During the fall and winter of 1943-44, I was in the Army’s Specialized Training Program at North Texas State Teachers College in Denton, Texas, about 35 miles north of […]
Mistaken identity: Rumors of Baldwin Sharknose diesels in PRR freight service prompted a 14-year-old boy to visit Altoona, where he had a satisfying—if erroneous—encounter with a pair of FM Erie-builts. Fred Kern, Jay Potter coll. From the look of the icicles and snow in this photograph, December 20, 1960, must have been a cold day […]
Erie Lackawanna train “DAYTON 97” rolls west through Richwood, Ohio, bound for its namesake city on July 7, 1973. The train originated in Marion, Ohio, and backed east across the double track main lines of the Chesapeake & Ohio and Norfolk & Western before beginning its westward journey on the Dayton Branch. Photo by Russell […]
Santa Fe 4-8-4 No. 3760, author Elwood’s “bad luck” engine, leads the second section of the Grand Canyon west near Hesperia, Calif., in the 1950s. Don Sims My story takes place in 1943, when steam locomotives were supreme, and tells about my experiences with Santa Fe 3751-class 4-8-4 No. 3760. I was firing in passenger […]
In a photo by his dad, 11-year-old Michael Landry stands in Pontiac, Mich., with the Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 they rode from Detroit on March 24, 1960. Hank Landry There I am, 11 years old, dwarfed by the Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 on the next track during its stop at Pontiac, Mich., on March 24, […]
