On creating the world’s largest fusee

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Union Pacific’s City of Denver curves away from North Western Station in Chicago at the start of its run west. Sister streamliner City of Portland once made an unscheduled stop at Oak Park, 9 miles west. Wallace W. Abbey In spring 1955, I was working as a ticket clerk at Chicago & North Western’s Oak […]

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Hi-cubes and fruit cans

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NYC RS3 8288 — a “little diesel” to the author as a pre-schooler — heads a westbound way freight along the Hudson River at Peekskill in 1959. Nine years later and 29 miles down the river a hi-cube car ran into trouble. Karl R. Zimmermann Between the 1910s, when the New York Central electrified its […]

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Canadian Pacific’s predecessors

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Some men go to war for their country. Others build railroads. In both ventures, there is sacrifice, struggle, and honor. The driving of the Canadian Pacific’s final spike at Craigellachie, B.C., in 1885 marked a defining moment in Canada’s transformation from a vast swath of land into a nation — a political and economic engine […]

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First Southern Pacific SD45 gets makeover at Utah museum NEWSWIRE

FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell FULL SCREEN Chris Fussell OGDEN, Utah – The first Southern Pacific SD45 built is getting a facelift at the Utah State Railroad Museum. Volunteers there have recently started installing SP’s unique light kit on the […]

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Super Bowl Sunday on the Santa Fe

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At frosty Higgins, Texas, on the Santa Fe, author Metzger’s crane parts sit sidetracked as SD40-2s pass with a freight. Bill Metzger While my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Seattle Seahawks in the 2007 Super Bowl, I got to thinking about where I was the last time the Steelers won football’s biggest game. It […]

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A hard way to make a living

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Illinois Central 2-8-2 Mikado 1544 is eastbound at Villa Park, Ill., on a cold day in 1951. Henry M. Stange Some years ago, after a reunion of my old 10th Engineer Battalion at Springfield, Ill., I boarded Amtrak’s Statehouse for Chicago. I’d never ridden the former Chicago & Alton before, but I was eager to […]

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Mixed train through the muskeg

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Near Conklin, Alberta, NAR mixed train 77 ambles toward Fort McMurray on June 26, 1972, the second day of author Armstrong’s four-day adventure. James B. Armstrong At 5 o’clock every Sunday and Wednesday evening, mixed train No. 75 would trundle slowly out of Dunvegan Yards (Edmonton), headquarters and southern terminus of the Northern Alberta Railways, […]

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Whatever happened to the anthracite roads?

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The Northeast was laced with anthracite roads — those carriers that made a name for themselves hauling hard coal out of the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. With its high heat value, clean-burning anthracite was far superior to wood for warming homes and offices, and moving this coal by rail fueled the growth of the East’s […]

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Kindnesses on the Omaha Road

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Omaha Road 4-6-2 No. 500 departs Minneapolis with a train for Superior, Wis., in August 1950. Bob Borcherding At nearly 70 years of age, I am still enthralled at the passage of trains. Today’s trains—often featuring high-horsepower diesel locomotives, radio-controlled helpers, rotary-dump coal cars by the unit-trainload, and containers carrying products from halfway around the […]

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