An interior view at Tower 19 near Dallas (Texas) Union Terminal shows the track diagram (“model board”) of the territory controlled by the tower and some of the levers that controlled the switches and signals. This is an electro-pneumatic interlocking, in which switches are operated by compressed air. Historic American Engineering Record photo […]
New York Central E8 diesels idle at La Salle Street Station, Chicago, awaiting departure with two sections of the 20th Century Limited in November 1953. Robert W. Carper photo […]
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A long string of stock cars is tucked in behind Santa Fe 2-8-2 No. 4085 on train 44, the Perishable Express, near Henrietta, Mo., in 1946. Behind the stock cars are 33 refrigerator cars. Robert R. Malinoski photo […]
This is a typical standpipe (also called water crane, water column, or water plug) used to fill steam locomotive tenders with water, which is supplied by pipe from a tank. A single tank might supply several standpipes. When not in use, they were swung away from the track. The bucket-like object between the end of […]
A Daylight 4-8-4 and a 4-8-2 doublehead the Los Angeles-bound San Joaquin Daylight upgrade at Allard, Calif., a dozen miles north of famous Tehachapi Loop, in May 1953. W. E. Malloy Jr. photo […]
Four F7s take a train of refrigerator cars through a horseshoe curve near Gleed, Ariz., in the 1950s. A major line change in 1960 eliminated tough operating conditions like this for the Santa Fe across northern Arizona. Santa Fe photo […]
At the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines station in Cape May, N.J., an RDC1 and Pennsy E6 Atlantic No. 645 share the platform in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Denver & Rio Grande Western 4-8-2 1705 raises an impressive smoke plume as it lifts a troop train up the Front Range of the Rockies at Tolland, Colo., on May 16, 1943. Robert McKell photo […]
A crewman on Virginia Blue Ridge 2-8-0 No. 6 (ex-Southern 385) coaxes a cow off the track at Tye River, Va., in July 1954. Today this engine is at the Whippany (N.J.) Railway Museum. H. Reid photo […]
