In high hopes of increased coal traffic, West Virginia’s Middle Fork Railroad in the early 1960s laid heavier rail on its main line. Some of that rail waits in gons while a loaded coal train moves past at Ellamore, W.Va. Alas, the traffic never materialized. Photo by J. Michael Dunn III […]
Read about the Virginian Railway in a PDF of the article: “A Bit of Flair in the Coalfields” published in the Fall 2001 issue of Classic Trains in the Fallen Flags Remembered section. Download the story by clicking on the PDF below. […]
Engineer Norman Strickland (in front of cylinder) and fireman Russell Phillips stand at Perryville, Md., with G5s 1592, ready to depart with MD-58 for Philadelphia via the Octoraro Branch. George Gillespie Probably 90 percent of all railfans would say their favorite locomotive is the one on which they took their first cab ride. This is […]
Read about the Reading Company’s railroad in a PDF of the Fallen Flags Remembered article: “Take a Ride on the Reading” published in the Summer 2000 issue of Classic Trains magazine. Download the story by clicking on the PDF below. […]
On a day when they left the “Green Hornet” parked in order to simply watch the Afternoon Hiawatha sweep by, artist buddies Howard Fogg (at right in photo) and Gil Reid witnessed an F7 Hudson lean into Deerfield Curve with the Chicago-bound train. Gil Reid The year is 1939, and I am a student at […]
Union Pacific’s Las Vegas depot was the gateway to temptation for some passengers. Fletcher Swan I am a fanatic when it comes to preserving old paperwork related to railroad operations and history, as attested by a cluttered basement. I tell my wife, who is sometimes a bit skeptical, that there is always some interesting history […]
When SP cab-forward 4173 derailed on the turntable at Tucson, “suits” and laborers reported to the scene. R. S. Plummer, Gordon Bassett coll. I have been collecting old black-and-white railroad negatives for nearly 30 years. When I receive a new batch, it’s like Christmas, opening the package and sorting through the stuff. You never know […]
Twenty-four years separate these two density maps — a long time in North American railroading. The 1974 Penn Central map uses the last data available for the failed railroad; the 1998 Conrail map likewise is based on the last data before its system was split between CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern. While similarities appear, the […]
This Map of the Month was featured in the March 2007 issue of Trains magazine. Imagine if you were to go back in time and tell Cornelius Vanderbilt that the giant railroad system he had methodically assembled — the powerful New York Central — would one day be carved up by two coal roads from […]
This Map of the Month was featured in the August 2002 issue of Trains magazine. If ever two railroads practiced seamless service decades before it became a railroad industry buzzword, it would be the Chicago & North Western and the Omaha Road. The Omaha Road, the usual shorthand for the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & […]
This Map of the Month appeared in the December 2005 issue of Trains magazine. Among the many hazards of running trains at high elevations in North America are the difficulties of snow, ice, and avalanche. This was well illustrated in Washington state where the Great Northern crossed the Cascades at Stevens Pass, named for John F. […]
Near the end of its San Francisco–L.A. run, SP GS-2 4-8-4 4415 rolls “Overnight Merchandise” train 374 through Glendale. Herb Sullivan In 1954, when I was 14 years old, my family moved to within a few blocks of Southern Pacific’s Glendale Tower north of Los Angeles. I soon became friends with the second-trick towerman, and […]
