A Southern Pacific 2-8-0 pulls a log train on the Cloudcroft branch near Alamogordo, N.Mex. This view is from 1946, three years before the line was abandoned. Henry Garcia photo […]
SP logging train
Magazine: Classic Trains
Santa Fe’s Fast Mail and Chief
An A-B-B set of F7’s leads the Santa Fe’s Fast Mail Express toward Los Angeles at West Victorville, Calif., in 1950. The train’s 14-car consist is heavy with baggage, express, and mail storage cars, but it also includes a Railway Post Office car. A baggage-coach combine brought up the rear as a rider car for […]
Grand Central Station, Chicago
The Baltimore & Ohio’s passenger terminal in Chicago was Grand Central Station, built in 1890 to the plans of noted architect S. S. Bemen. The Wisconsin Central Railroad actually commissioned the station, but later sold it to the B&O; other users were Chicago Great Western and Pere Marquette. Grand Central was razed in 1970; its […]
Historical Chicago terminal railroads: Still going Strong
Chicago has always had a plethora of terminal railroads. Many have come and gone, but a handful with historical roots dating to the late 19th Century are still active today, and vital to keeping the freight and passenger traffic consistently moving in and out of the city. These are Historical Chicago terminal railroads that are […]
North Western 4-6-4 at West Chicago
Chicago & North Western class E-4 streamlined Hudson sails through West Chicago, Ill., with one of the Union Pacific Challenger trains in September 1945. The second car in the train is a U.S. Army hospital car. Henry J. McCord photo […]
NP 4-6-6-4 at Livingston, Mont.
As trackworkers tend to a frozen switch, Northern Pacific 4-6-6-4 No. 5122 prepares to head east out of Livingston, Mont., with a freight sometime in the late 1940s. NP’s Livingston shops, still used by today’s Montana Rail Link, are visible at right. C. W. Jernstrom photo […]
UP and SP at LAUPT
Union Pacific 4-8-4 803 and a Southern Pacific E7 wait outside Los Angeles Union Passenger terminal in the late 1940s, ready to back down to their respective trains. The E7 is for the Golden State, while the 4-8-4 is likely for the Los Angeles Limited. Herbert Johnson photo […]
Cresting Saluda Grade
Southern Railway FP7 6141 and an F3 roar uphill into the hamlet of Saluda, N.C., top of famous 4.7-percent Saluda Grade, with the Charleston, S.C.–Cincinnati Carolina Special in the early 1950s. Linn H. Westcott photo […]
Load ‘em up
Early auto racks allowed easy loading and unloading of multiple cars with end ramps. Here AMC cars are being loaded near Kenosha, Wis., on the Chicago & North Western in 1966. Photo by Chicago & North Western, Keith Kohlmann collection […]
Legends in their fields
Trains magazine editor David P. Morgan pauses on a station platform at Joliet, Ill., to watch trains – in this case a Santa Fe streamliner behind EMD F7 diesels. Photo by Classic Trains collection […]
Intermountain interloper
Two of Rio Grande’s Krauss-Maffei diesel-hydraulics spent almost three weeks testing on the New York Central in early 1963. Here crews on New York Central Advance BF-3 change at Bellefontaine, Ohio, on February 24, 1963. Photo by Si Herring […]
Hoseshoe helper
Conrail 6070, a former Erie Lackawanna SD45, assists a westbound freight up Pennsylvania’s Horseshoe Curve on July 25, 1981, just a few months after removal of one of the Curve’s four tracks. Photo by Robert S. McGonigal […]