Looking for ghosts in West Virginia

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Click the image to download this interactive PDF. Many who love narrow-gauge railroads consider West Virginia’s Babcock State Park hallowed ground, for that’s where the Mann’s Creek Railway operated. From 1886 to 1955, this 9-mile threefooter hauled Sewell-seam coal from Clifftop, along the old Midland Trail about 70 miles east of Charleston, to Sewell, in […]

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About that Milwaukee Road map

Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad

Trains Magazine’s September 2010 “Map of the Month: Milwaukee Road Growth” maps the expansion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, from a 20-mile line linking Milwaukee and Waukesha, Wis. (respectively, Trains’ past and current hometown) into a 10,733-mile transcontinental system over a scant 100 years. Any map charting this kind of expansion […]

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Thundering through Jasper

Canadian National coal train C77951 (Winniandy, Alta., to Vancover, B.C.) thunders through Jasper, Alta., on April 6, 2009. Both CN and competitor Canadian Pacific move high-grade metallurgical coal from western Canadian mines to the Vancover-area port of Roberts Bank for export. Tim Stevens photo […]

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American Railway Explorer plan is scrapped NEWSWIRE

DENVER – The proposed American Railway Explorer luxury passenger train is being mothballed just three months after its announcement, the Denver Post has reported. Officials with Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the train’s owner, yesterday told contractors working on equipment refurbishment to cease work. Xanterra, one of billionaire Phil Anschutz’s holdings, couldn’t be reached for comment. […]

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Burlington Northern icon Robert W. Downing dies NEWSWIRE

Robert W. Downing Burlington Northern SPOKANE, Wash. – Robert W. Downing, a railroad legend who helped shape today’s BNSF Railway during a career with its predecessor roads, died yesterday following surgery. He was 96 years old. Downing’s railroad career began with Pennsylvania Railroad during the Great Depression. When PRR laid him off, he took a […]

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Worcester waiting

A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority train stares down a red signal at Worcester, Mass., the end of the run for Framingham Line trains, at dusk on Oct. 18, 2008. Soon the train will reverse direction and head back to Boston, with the engine pushing. Matt Van Hattem photo […]

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Emerging from Hagans Tunnel

Louisville & Nashville Cumberland Valley fast freight No. 66 leaves the north portal of Hagans Tunnel in May 1966. Three fairly new General Electric U25Cs are on the point of this train, which has just passed through L&N’s longest tunnel at 6,244-feet. Ron Flanary photo […]

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