In the January 2012 Model Railroader, Jim Richards explains how he kitbashed a Walthers double-track swing bridge into an offset swing bridge. The prototype Milwaukee Road bridge Jim modeled first appeared in the July 1947 MR. […]
Frisco 4501, one of the road’s three 4500-series 4-8-4s assigned to passenger service, rolls the Meteor into St. Louis. Ben F. Cutler About midnight on a Saturday in 1944 on the station platform in Neosho, Mo., are 500 guys with suntans, each carrying a one-day pass and probably a railway ticket tucked in his wallet. […]
Amtrak inherited from Penn Central these self-propelled Rail Diesel Cars with distinctive front ends built for the New Haven Railroad’s Roger Williams. Budd Co. delivered six RDCs in an A-B-B-B-B-A formation to the New Haven in 1956. The slapped-on Amtrak logo from this February 1975 view would be replaced four years later with the company’s […]
Philadelphia Transportation Co. PCC car 2115 cruises east on a Route 56 run along Erie Avenue in 1955. Mert Leet My dad worked as a trolley operator for the Philadelphia Transportation Company. Stationed at the 10th and Luzerne carbarn, he was one of a legion of veterans who found work on the PTC after World […]
“Deluxe” cars like these on New Haven train 365 at Darien, Conn., in July 1947 were not what author Paradis experienced on his commuter-train rides. NH The distant rumble warned that the mighty New York Central steam locomotive with its 12 steel coaches would soon round the curve on the Harlem Division and bear down […]
Amtrak GG1 meets an E60 in 1980, two years after the author’s ride behind one of each, plus a Conrail E44. Robert S. McGonigal As the murky fall afternoon began to lengthen, the Silver Meteor I was riding across northern New Jersey began to slow down. Then just east of Rahway, nowhere near a scheduled […]
Illinois Central SD40-2 No. 6015 leads Canadian National train 348 south past the tower at Barrington, Ill., on May 6, 2010. Photo by Chris Gus […]
Seen from the North Shore Line bridge, a Milwaukee Road F7 4-6-4 rips through Rondout, Ill., with train 15, the Olympian, in March 1941. Frank Sellers At Christmastime 1940, when I was 15 years old, my widowed mother spent $4 of her hard-earned money to buy me a Kodak Brownie Special camera. I was thrilled. […]
NYC’s eastbound 20th Century Limited slows for a station stop at South Bend, Ind., in October 1962. Louis A. Marre On Saturday, February 17, 1962, a train wreck at Fonda, N.Y., on New York Central’s Water Level Route main line, blocked all traffic east and west. Because of this, westbound trains were to be diverted […]
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s Keystone Tubular Train, built by The Budd Co. in 1956, was designed to hug the rails tighter and enable faster transit times. PRR Q What happened to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Keystone Tubular Train? I heard it was in Michigan and derailed on its way to a new owner for dinner train service.— […]
Firemen on oil-burners like SP 4-8-2 4360 at Pinole, Calif., had to be sure the fuel was not too hot, not too cold, and adequately pressurized. John C. Illman As a fireman of oil-burning steam locomotives on the Southern Pacific during the 1950s (on the Coast, Rio Grande, Western, and Sacramento divisions), I never envied […]
Still dressed in royal blue, a mail-express car and “comboose” 307 bring up the rear of NAR mixed train 75 at Egremont, Alta., in August 1972. J. David Ingles collection Several great trains have carried the name “Blue Train.” The most famous ones were in Europe and South Africa. Then there were the trains of […]
