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Los Angeles Union Station Whenever communities, large or small, renovate and rejuvenate railroad passenger stations, the question becomes; What now? For many, whether it be one train a day, or dozens, local denizens want to see their hard work put to use the facility for events other than being a stationary harbor for incoming and […]
Train timetables The digital information age has spawned a flurry of welcome advances in rail transportation, such as the convenience of online , ticketing and instantaneous notification of delays. Getting rid of easy-to-access timetables showing stops trains make isn’t one of them. Fortunately, other providers have helped fill the void. History From their inception in […]
Versatility is a single word that sums up the Mikado-type steam locomotive. This 2-8-2 wheel arrangement became the “one size fits all” in terms of mass usage across North America’s railroads. When it also came to bridging the gap in advanced steam technology at the turn of the 20th century, this locomotive type delivered. […]
CPKC’s Final Spike Anniversary Steam Tour On April 29, 2024, Canadian Pacific steam locomotive No. 2816 crossed into the United States at Portal, N.D., for the first time in over a decade. The engine is powering a tour covering three countries to celebrate the anniversary of the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern becoming the […]
Like some railfan contemporaries, in recent weeks I’ve been going through decades of railroad stuff, seeing what I can get rid of and what I simply can’t live without. Tough choices. In the “can’t live without” category, anything with David P. Morgan’s name on it, or anything labeled “New York Central” or “C&EI.” In the […]
Walt Disney’s railroads It is no secret that Walt Disney loved trains. His passion for railroads runs to the time of his youth and can still be seen throughout today’s Disney empire. For Walt, as you will see, railroading was an early job — one that made him little money — but one that put […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Mike Wilson: My first byline in Trains was “Winter in Coal Country,” published in January 2022 featuring an in-depth look at the former Norfolk & Western, now Norfolk Southern, Pocahontas Division within the backwoods of southern Virginia and West Virginia. In my humble opinion, the Pocahontas Division serves […]
The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, sent a Civil War-battered country into 20 days of national mourning. At the center of it all was a black-draped train, slowly and sadly carrying the former commander in chief’s body from Washington, D.C. to his hometown of Springfield, Ill. The U.S. rail network is no […]
Railroad fusees My first memory of using railroad fusees [flares] for signaling was on an early winter morning in 1978. Coming back from lunch on the midnight shift at Auburn yard, the scenery had turned very foggy. Lanterns, while not useless, were hard to see at a distance in that kind of weather. During those […]
It’s a dangerous world out here I heard from a reader who’d recently become a railroader. A camera tot’n railfan (as I had once been) — and a very good one, at that. My first response was to congratulate him. My next impulse was to offer a heartfelt warning. “Whatever you do, be careful. It’s […]
Q: I am looking for suggestions for industries for an Idaho model railroad in the 1940s. I’m working on building an HO scale 10 x 11-foot around-the-walls model railroad. I have decided to model a small town in rural Idaho along the Union Pacific in 1942. I am looking for a few plausible industries to […]
Rumors of the death of railroad fiction are greatly exaggerated. The veteran railroad journalist Fred Frailey made that clear a year ago with his “Seldom Willing,” an absorbing tale of an ambitious 1980s Midwestern regional railroad that outmaneuvered a far larger rival. When Fred told me his novel was coming out soon, I wasn’t sure […]
