A predecessor of this Rio Grande engineer made a daring Chama–Durango run in 1923. A. C. Kalmbach My grandfather, Marvin Rhodes, lived for almost a century, and he spent more than half of his long life working out of Durango, Colo., on the narrow-gauge lines of the Denver & Rio Grande Western. He hired out […]
For many years small towns were a major source of traffic for railroads all across the country. Long before anyone ever heard of freeways, the railroads moved all sorts of carload and less-than-carload lot (LCL) freight that kept the local businesses and nearby agricultural economy going. A local station agent-operator was the railroad’s representative who […]
The Chesapeake & Ohio and Clinchfield met end-to-end at this yard at Elkhorn City, Ky. In this misty 1973 scene, a C&O train is ready to head north with a string of hopper cars from the Clinchfield. Tony Koester photo […]
Watch video of big Louisville & Nashville steam locomotives on special trains into Louisville for the 1956 Kentucky Derby from the Herron Rail Video program Reflections of American Railroading. […]
Watch video of big Louisville & Nashville steam locomotives on special trains into Louisville for the 1956 Kentucky Derby from the Herron Rail Video program Reflections of American Railroading. […]
The Pennsylvania’s one-of-a-kind class S1 6-4-4-6 duplex drive No. 6100 shrugs off an early Chicago winter snow storm as it pauses at Englewood Union Station with the eastbound Manhattan Limited in November 1939. Harold Stirton photo […]
Handsome Western Maryland 4-6-2 No. 204 is ready to depart the road’s Hillen Street station in Baltimore with the daily train to Hagerstown, Md., in April 1951. Russ Wilcox photo […]
Santa Fe’s Chief approaches the Lamanda Park siding on May 17, 1946. The fireman on the helper is ready to jump off and uncouple his 4-8-2 so it can move into the clear and let 4-8-4 No. 2921 continue east with train 20. Stan Kistler In early 1946, my family moved into a small house […]
Anything in the path of fast-moving N&W class J was sure to sustain significant damage. W. A. Akin Jr. Back in the glory days, the speed limit for passenger trains on Norfolk & Western’s Bristol Line was 65 mph. Several of the trains, including 45 and 46, the streamlined Tennessean, did considerable station work en […]
No. 1009 Norfolk Southern CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – Norfolk Southern has completed the cosmetic restoration of the Virginia Museum of Transportation’s Wabash E8 No. 1009. The unit was the 10,000th diesel locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division, commemorated on June 14, 1951, at its La Grange, Ill., facility. The locomotive saw service pulling streamliners such […]
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The Katy-Frisco Texas Special, a favorite conveyance for the Katy president’s business car, arrives in St. Louis in 1956. Fred Scott My railroad-related career started in 1941, when I was hired as a stenographer by the South-Western Freight Bureau in St. Louis. It was readily accepted for a young man who had studied shorthand and […]
