Some of Soo Line’s 50-foot, 70-ton boxcars were equipped with grain doors, visible in the upper part of the plug door. The railroad built 200 of the modern-looking cars in 1964. Photo by Soo Line […]
Modern grain movers
Era: 1946 - 1970
Dispatcher’s delight
Missouri-Kansas-Texas 4-6-2 400 leaves Denison, Texas, with an extra in late 1948. Above the engine, awnings shade the windows of the dispatcher’s office, where the photographer then worked. One of 10 members of the Katy’s H-3-c class Pacifics, No. 400 was built in 1920 by Lima. Photo by Harold K. Vollrath […]
Fall in Wisconsin
A C&NW E8 leads the Chicago–Rapid City, S.Dak., Dakota 400 past the shimmering waters of Devil’s Lake on October 7, 1956. Today, Wisconsin & Southern freights pass through this scenic state park, located 3 miles south of Baraboo. Photo by William D. Middleton […]
Shark nose style
Baldwin’s shark-nosed DR-4-4-15 demonstrator set appears in a 1949 photo. Typical of builders’ offerings of the time, it was constructed in an A-B-B-A set. Photo by Baldwin […]
Small town railroading
Santa Fe local 42, with 4-6-2 3445, rolls along Duarte Road in the community of Duarte, Calif., east of Los Angeles on January 1, 1952. The railroad had 50 locomotives in the class, Nos. 3400–3449, built by Baldwin in 1919–1924 and retired in the early 1950s. Photo by Stan Kistler […]
Diesels victorious
Two Pittsburgh & Western Virginia Fairbanks-Morse H20-44s lead 81-car train 92 into Louise, W.Va., in March 1950. P&WV completely dieselized its road trains with the Fairbanks-Morse units, sending all seven of its 2-6-6-4s to scrap. Photo by J.J. Young Jr. […]
Fleet fillers: The inexpensive and versatile Lionel 6424 flatcar
Consider how many things need to be moved on a railroad. Now think about how many of them are transported (or could be) on flatcars. Lionel’s postwar No. 6424 is really a no-brainer for Fleet Filler status. It comes in a number of iterations, plain or with racks affixed for the lading of various items. […]
Steamy snow scene
A pair of Canadian Pacific 2-8-2s, Nos. 5410 and 5329, drift with their grain extra down into the Eaton River valley just west of Cookshire, Quebec, in the mid-1950s. Cookshire was home to one of five water tanks on the line east from Montreal into Maine, and most eastbound trains would stop there. Photo by […]
Story City branch
Minneapolis & St. Louis 2-6-0 Mogul 310 has only one gondola left to deliver in Story City, Iowa, before returning home in July 1946. The railroad had 877 route miles in the state in 1931, the fifth most for a railroad at the time. Photo by William F. Armstrong […]
Photo of the Day
B&O steam Baltimore & Ohio S-1 class 2-10-2 No. 6174 backs up the hump at Willard, Ohio, with reefers. The railroad had 125 such locomotives in the class, built by Baldwin and Lima between 1923 and 1926. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Did we stop you? | Classic Trains Magazine
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Photo of the Day
Union Pacific mixed train Consolidation 284 leads Union Pacific train 386, a mixed train on the road’s Idaho Northern Branch, near Smith’s Ferry, Idaho, in December 1947. R. H. Kindig photo […]
