Seaboard Air Line at Melrose, N.C.

Red caboose on rear of freight train

Watch 8mm home movies from 1945-46 of Seaboard Air Line steam and diesel action around Melrose, N.C. From the collection of James H. D. Helms Jr., whose father took the movies and whose grandfather was an SAL conductor. […]

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Super Bowl Sunday on the Santa Fe

ATSF-HigginsTX

At frosty Higgins, Texas, on the Santa Fe, author Metzger’s crane parts sit sidetracked as SD40-2s pass with a freight. Bill Metzger While my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Seattle Seahawks in the 2007 Super Bowl, I got to thinking about where I was the last time the Steelers won football’s biggest game. It […]

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A hard way to make a living

ic 1544

Illinois Central 2-8-2 Mikado 1544 is eastbound at Villa Park, Ill., on a cold day in 1951. Henry M. Stange Some years ago, after a reunion of my old 10th Engineer Battalion at Springfield, Ill., I boarded Amtrak’s Statehouse for Chicago. I’d never ridden the former Chicago & Alton before, but I was eager to […]

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Book Review: Garratt Locomotives

Garratt Locomotives

Garratt Locomotives Reprinted by Heimburger House Publishing, 7236 W. Madison St., Forest Park, IL 60130; 36 pages, 50 illustrations; softcover, 11.5 x 8.5 in.; $18.95 Heimburger House has published this reprint of a 1920s-era Beyer, Peacock & Co. Garratt locomotive catalog. To North American eyes, the Garratt is an unusual-looking machine, but the fact that […]

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Book Review: The Ligonier Valley Rail Road

The Ligonier Valley Rail Road by Robert D. Stutzman Arcadia Publishing, 420 Wando Park Blvd., Charleston, SC 29464; 128 pages; softcover, 6.5 x 9.25 in.; $21.99 Pennsylvania is known today for having more than 50 shortline railroads within its borders, most of which are castoff segments of the Class I railroads. In the 19th and […]

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Fastest hogger on the slim-gauge

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A predecessor of this Rio Grande engineer made a daring Chama–Durango run in 1923. A. C. Kalmbach My grandfather, Marvin Rhodes, lived for almost a century, and he spent more than half of his long life working out of Durango, Colo., on the narrow-gauge lines of the Denver & Rio Grande Western. He hired out […]

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Midwest passenger train consists, July 23-25, 1964

Classic Trains logo

Trains ridden: C&O-B&O Night Special, Detroit–Toledo–Lima, July 23-24 (C&O No. 21, Detroit Fort Street–Plymouth; C&O No. 48, Plymouth–Toledo; B&O No. 57, Toledo–Lima): B&O 1457/1409 (E9A/E6A), 12 cars* (B&O unless noted): REX 6398 express, REX 7082 express, C&O 396 baggage, 662 baggage, 230 baggage, 47 RPO, 3547 coach, 3572 coach, B&O Pullman sleeper Cascade Drive (MP Eagle […]

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