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 […]
Consolidation vs. cow on the Virginia Blue Ridge
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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 […]
Classic Trains, Spring 2026
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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 […]
PRR’s first passenger diesel
Pennsylvania E7A 5901, one of the units constituting the big road’s first passenger diesel, teams up with an E7B and another E7A on a “Blue Ribbon” limited departing Chicago. This historic unit is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. PRR photo […]
GG1 to the rescue
Amtrak E60CH 966 on the Washington-bound Murray Hill has become disabled just south of Bowie, Md., on March 26, 1976. Sent out to rescue the one-year-old motor is Penn Central GG1 4885 — a 37-year veteran of the Northeast Corridor. Ray Brubacker photo […]
Santa Fe’s Barstow Yard
An early-1904s view of the Santa Fe’s big freight yard at Barstow, Calif., shows, at the left side of the photo, war materiel on flatcars. Santa Fe photo […]
