CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Lynn Nystrom, a fireman and engineer with Union Pacific’s steam program, died last week at a Cheyenne hospital. He was 69. Nystrom, a Vietnam veteran, worked in law enforcement before joining the Rock Island as a special agent in 1968. He joined UP as a switchman/brakeman in 1989. Nystrom’s family has requested […]
Lake Superior Railroad Museum’s equipment roster
In our special issue, “Historic Trains Today,” TRAINS correspondent Steve Glischinski profiled the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth, Minn. Here’s a list of their non-locomotive equipment. For more detailed information, visit the museum’s website. […]
Sloan Cornell, steam tourist railroad pioneer, dies NEWSWIRE
INDIANA, Pa. — Sloan Cornell, one of the pioneers of the steam tourist railroad industry, died on April 20 at age 85. Cornell had a lifelong interest in steam locomotives, owning and operating half a dozen over the years. He built his first steam railroad, the Penn View Mountain Railroad, on his farm near Blairsville, […]
How Genesee & Wyoming deploys its 583 locomotives
Genesee & Wyoming-owned St. Lawrence & Atlantic units congregate at Danville Junction, Maine, in August 2006. Matt Martin In Trains June 2010 issue, we told you how a 14-mile New York short line became a holding company with 62 railroads. How does Genesee & Wyoming manage its power? As of spring 2010, Genesee & Wyoming […]
Chesapeake & Ohio in the West Virginia coal fields
Eastern coal railroads issued maps of coal mines they served for the information of customers. This map (redrawn for clarity) shows C&O’s New River and Kanawha (Ka-NAW) Districts in 1966. their common border marks the divide between high and low volatile coal measures, an important distinction that determines whether coal is used to make coke […]
Intermodal trains per day in 1984
Intermodal haulage on railroads initially resembled loose-car railroading: Cities of varying sizes had ramps that originated a few flatcars, which were added to merchandise freights. A trucker, though, could beat that service easily. Larger cities generated solid intermodal trains, but the cost of terminals, equipment, and operations made the business lucrative only in lanes of […]
Trains, April 2010
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High green, but no go
As the sun rises over a brutal Chicago morning, Wisconsin Central train T045 stares at a clear signal at Chatham Ave. at CSX’s Barr Yard. The train’s air is slow to come up on a -20 Jan. 17, 1997. William M. Beecher Jr. photo […]
Camera Lenses and Railroad Photos
With a normal lens, the photographer takes a photo of the westward California Zephyr running through the Feather River Canyon in east-central California on the Western Pacific Railroad in summer 1968. Thomas Taylor With a normal lens, the photographer takes a shot of Operator Art Simmons putting his feet up at Canadian Pacific Railway’s West […]
An Amtrak special move
An Amtrak special move, with private car Ohio River at the back, rolls along Canadian Pacific’s former Delaware & Hudson main line on Sept. 4, 2009. The train is on its way from Albany, N.Y., to Railfest 2009 in Scranton, Pa. Jim Conroy photo […]
Texas Eagle charges through Terrell
Amtrak’s Texas Eagle for Chicago charges through Terrell, Texas, on Oct. 14, 2008. Photo by Steve Schmollinger […]
Chicago tonnage by railroad: 1971 and 2000
Traffic density changes in the past 30 years on freight railroads’ main lines to Chicago reflect factors both geographic and corporate. Geographic factors include the shift of manufacturing from domestic to offshore; air quality regulations that closed high-sulfur Western mines; and general population and economic growth. Corporate factors include the desire of railroad managements to […]
