Shreveport, La. (Texas Junction)

Shreveport is profiled in Kalmbach’s Guide to North American Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Read below for Shreveport information. Site: Shreveport, Louisiana Popular Name: Texas Junction Location: Louisiana B-1 (Rand McNally Atlas) Directions: 10 miles northwest of downtown Shreveport. From I-220 (a freeway loop around the north side of Shreveport), exit […]

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Soldier Summit, Utah

Soldier Summit is one of two sites in Utah profiled in Kalmbach’s Guide to North American Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Read below for Soldier Summit information. DescriptionDouble-track main line of Union Pacific’s ex-Denver & Rio Grande Western line over the Wasatch Mountains, used jointly by UP and the Utah Railway. […]

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Spokane, Wash., a railfanning hotspot

Spokane photo

Eastbound BNSF freights from Seattle descend into Spokane on the Indian Canyon Bridge, part of a 1970s relocation of the ex-Great Northern main line. Bruce Kelly Spokane is one of three Washington state locales profiled in Kalmbach’s Guide to North American Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Description Spokane is the busy […]

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Texarkana, Texas

Texarkana is one of four sites in Texas profiled in Kalmbach’s Guide to North American Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Read below for Texarkana information. Site: Texarkana, Texas Nearest Cities: Dallas (186 miles southwest); Shreveport, La. (71 miles southeast) Popular Name: Tower 42 Location: Texas/Eastern EC-12 (Rand McNally Atlas) Directions: About […]

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Tulsa, Okla.

Tulsa-Sapulpa switcher

Tulsa-Sapulpa Union No. 104 borrows a page from the story ” The Little Engine that Could.” Hal Miller Tulsa, Okla. is served by two Class 1 railroads, three short lines, and two industrial operations. TRAINS Magazine profiled two of Tulsa’s hometown short lines in its April 2001 issue. See below for some information on Tulsa’s […]

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Weber Canyon, Utah

Ogden is still a busy railroad town with main lines approaching from four different directions. From the east, Union Pacific reaches Ogden through 40-mile Weber Canyon (pronounced “WEE-ber.”) It’s one of two Utah hot spots profiled in Kalmbach Publishing’s Guide to North American Railroad Hot Spots by TRAINS Senior Editor J. David Ingles. Read below: […]

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Panama Canal Railway’s passenger train

Panama Canal Railway

Scenic highlight of a ride on the Panama Canal Railway is the Montelino Causeway across Gatun Lake. Bob Johnston The Panama Canal Railway Company is like a steel chameleon. It runs a successful passenger operation serving different types of travelers. Then, with the issuance of a simple track warrant, the railroad changes in an instant […]

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GPS helps you find the trains

It was December 2005 when I wrote the rough draft of my story on using GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) to help when chasing trains in unfamiliar lands. Between that time and the time the article appeared in the July 2006 issue of Trains, I kept an eye on the advertisements from national electronic retailers (Best […]

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Bruce Meyer

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Norfolk & Western Y6-Class 2-8-8-2 No. 2136 thunders east near Delbarton, W.Va., with a coal train on March 25, 1959. Bruce R. Meyer Bruce Meyer has been on a search for steam since he started taking railroad photographs in the early 1950s. Meyer made a dramatic record of steam’s final years in the Midwest and […]

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David Plowden

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Capturing the disappearing aspects of American life is photographer David Plowden’s stock in trade. He proudly relates that his first published photograph appeared in TRAINS magazine a year before he graduated from Yale with an economics degree. After photographing locomotives and other aspects of railroading in the early 1960s, he turned his camera to depots, […]

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David W. Salter

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David W. Salter’s natural curiosity took him trackside throughout the South in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, photographing railroads in both color and black-and-white. Photography took a back seat when he was drafted into the Navy in 1950, and bounced to places as far-flung as Boston and Seattle, but Salter returned to his hobby after […]

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Henry R. Griffiths, Jr.

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Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, Henry Griffiths, Jr., produced an extensive, high-quality photographic record of railroading in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Griffiths began photographing in the 1930s. Among his successes was a 1952 photo essay commissioned by True magazine of Union Pacific’s operations west from Cheyenne, Wyo. After a career […]

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