Cody’s Trackside Finds: A potpourri of motive power

Color photo showing front of EMD four-axle cab unit painted blue and gray with yellow graphics.

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 […]

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Moffat Tunnel car washers

20160413

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 […]

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CN 2-8-0 in the rain

20160414

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 […]

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B&O “Dockside” 0-4-0T

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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 […]

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Lackawanna’s great Pequest Fill

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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 […]

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Retail railroading

20160311

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 […]

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