Three Burlington Route E units are refueled at Burlington, Iowa, during their nighttime dash from Chicago to Omaha with the Fast Mail. CB&Q photo […]
CB&Q’s Fast Mail at Burlington
Magazine: Classic Trains
Alco C415 failure — Diesels that didn’t
Alco C415 failure was not what the famed locomotive maker had in mind in the 1960s. At the time, Alco saw a need to revamp its switcher offerings and came up with the offset centercab configuration C415, which launched as a demonstrator in 1966. The arrangement separated the prime mover from the radiator on different […]
WM’s Elkins train at Cumberland
Western Maryland 4-6-2 209 stands at Cumberland, Md., ready to depart with train 9 to Elkins, W.Va., in the early 1950s. W. A. Akin photo […]
IC 4-8-2 on the James Whitcomb Riley
Illinois Central 4-8-2 No. 2452 contrasts with the stainless steel cars of New York Central’s James Whitcomb Riley as the Chicago–Cincinnati streamliner speeds past IC’s 75th Street suburban station on the South Side of Chicago in 1947. The Riley will switch to NYC rails, and power, at Kankakee, Ill. Willard A. Gardner photo […]
SP’s “Slim Princess” on a stroll
Southern Pacific’s “Slim Princess” line tackled the rugged and arid territory along the east side of Owens Lake between the Virginia & Truckee and Keeler. Originally the Carson & Colorado, it was renamed for parent SP in 1912. Here oil-burning 4-6-0 No. 8 leads a short train through the desert. Classic Trains collection […]
Loading hay on the NP
A load of hay has been transferred from a Northern Pacific boxcar to a truck for local delivery at Dickinson, N.D., in 1936. Library of Congress photo […]
Norfolk & Western passenger trains
All through January 2022, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the history and heritage of the Norfolk & Western. Please enjoy this photo gallery of Norfolk & Western passenger trains selected from the image files in Kalmbach Media’s David P. Morgan Library. This gallery was first published in October 2019. […]
IC Geeps on a meat train
Three Illinois Central GP7s on a train of refrigerator cars loaded with meat from Iowa stand in western Illinois, waiting for a stopped train ahead, in 1958. William D. Middleton photo […]
Bridge replacement on the Katy
A crane lowers into place the next-to-last plate girder of a new bridge that will replace a wood trestle on the Missouri-Kansas-Texas. The BETHLEHEM lettering on the plate girder indicates the maker of the steel. MKT photo […]
Rio Grande M-68 Northern
Handsome D&RGW 1800, first of the road’s five class M-68 passenger 4-8-4s built by Baldwin in 1938, poses for a broadside portrait near Denver Union Station in August 1940. R. H. Kindig photo […]
Blue Streak at Texarkana
An A-B-A set of FT diesels leads the Cotton Belt’s famous Blue Streak Merchandise freight through Texarkana, Tex., in 1949. R. S. Plummer photo […]
Norfolk & Western Railway history remembered
Norfolk & Western Railway history has two distinct phases. Before 1964, it was a coal hauler controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It even looked like the Pennsy in places: Tuscan Red coaches, position-light signals, and a short electrified district — but no Belpaire fireboxes. In 1964, possibly as a reaction to the proposed merger of […]
