My daily commute to our former Kalmbach Media offices at 21027 Crossroads Circle in Waukesha, Wis., conveniently crossed the Union Pacific, Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific. Most days I didn’t encounter a train. If I did, I was usually stuck too far back in the cue of traffic to get any meaningful photos. But the […]
Section: Photos
Train of Tomorrow Pullman compartment
Two models pose in a compartment in Dream Cloud, the sleeping car in the 1947 Train of Tomorrow demonstration streamliner, a joint project of General Motors and Pullman-Standard. GM photo […]
Great Northern ‘Mountain’-series observation car
Appekunny Mountain was one of six deep-windowed observation-lounge cars built by ACF for Great Northern’s “Mid-Century Empire Builder.” Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Little engine in a big land
This little 0-4-2T worked in building the Alaska Railroad, then went on to serve two logging operations along the line. Library of Congress photo […]
Consolidation vs. cow on the Virginia Blue Ridge
A crewman on Virginia Blue Ridge 2-8-0 No. 6 (ex-Southern 385) coaxes a cow off the track at Tye River, Va., in July 1954. Today this engine is at the Whippany (N.J.) Railway Museum. H. Reid photo […]
Moffat Tunnel car washers
The Rio Grande equipped both ends of the Moffat Tunnel with high-pressure car-washing sprayers to clean windows in preparation for the splendid views ahead. This is a view out the east portal in 1949. W. H. Mitchell photo […]
CN 2-8-0 in the rain
In a 1957 view from a crossing watchman’s tower at Burlington, Ont., elderly Canadian National 2-8-0 2647 passes in heavy rain with a Hamilton–Toronto local freight. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
EM-1 cresting Newburg Grade
Baltimore & Ohio class EM-1 2-8-8-4 7620 crests Newburg Grade in West Virginia with eastbound coal in 1948. William P. Price photo […]
Early SP intermodal train
An A-B-A set of F units departs San Francisco with Southern Pacific train 372, the piggyback-heavy Advance Overnight for Los Angeles, in August 1955. William Harry photo […]
B&O “Dockside” 0-4-0T
Baltimore & Ohio No. 9 is one of four class C-16 0-4-0T switchers built in 1912 to work tight-radius street trackage along Baltimore harbor. Two were rebuilt as tender engines in the 1920s, but the other two worked as-built until several years after World War II. Their compact size made them a favorite among HO […]
Lackawanna’s great Pequest Fill
A 4-8-4 leads a freight east across the Lackawanna Railroad’s colossal Pequest Fill. At more than 3 miles long, Pequest was a major feature of the road’s 28.5-mile cutoff across the rough terrain of northern New Jersey. The line below is the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
Retail railroading
In a scene far removed from today’s unit and intermodal trains, a small boy watches as a shipment is loaded aboard the Union Transportation Co.’s daily train at New Egypt, N.J., in September 1958. The short line used locomotives and cabin cars leased from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Aaron G. Fryer photo […]
