At New Orleans, E7s on Illinois Central’s Panama Limited pass Southern Pacific PAs, which have backed in with the Sunset Limited. James G. La Vake photo […]
Big Easy passenger power

At New Orleans, E7s on Illinois Central’s Panama Limited pass Southern Pacific PAs, which have backed in with the Sunset Limited. James G. La Vake photo […]
Two Baldwin-built DR-6-4-20 “Sharknose” diesels depart Jersey City with the Broker in 1960. The pinstripe scheme was designed in 1934 for the GG1 electric. William D. Volkmer photo […]
In 1955, Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-2 4443 pulls an eastbound coal train past the yard at Lumberton, W.Va., where the local switcher, an 0-8-0, is working. James P. Gallagher photo […]
At least five Alco-built diesel switchers line up at Ford Motor Co.’s Dearborn, Mich., plant. Did you really think the automaker would buy locomotives from rival General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division? Classic Trains collection […]
A stagecoach, steam locomotive, and F7 in Southern Pacific’s “black widow” paint scheme gather at a “Rail to Trail” pageant in Sacramento, Calif., celebrating the 100th anniversary of SP’s earliest predecessor, the Sacramento Valley Railroad, which began operation in 1856. Southern Pacific photo […]
Two Baldwin RF16 “Sharknose” diesels of the Monongahela Railroad lug a train of empty coal hoppers along the carrier’s namesake river at Alicia, Pa., in the late 1960s. The ex-New York Central units later went to the Delaware & Hudson and for decades have been privately owned and stored at Escanaba, Mich. David H. Hamley […]
Alco and Santa Fe pulled out all the stops when the road bought the first of the builder’s 2,000 h.p. postwar passenger diesels that came to be known as “PAs” (and “PBs” for booster units). Carrying ATSF road number 51, the brand-new three-unit locomotive heads a train down California’s Cajon Pass in October 1946. Santa […]
Two E6 diesels pose grandly with Illinois Central’s newly streamlined all-Pullman Panama Limited in an early-1940s publicity photo. Electro-Motive photo […]
Two 2-8-8-0 Mallets assist a train of oil-laden tank cars up Baltimore & Ohio’s 2.4-percent Cranberry Grade to Terra Alta, W.Va., in the early 1940s. The train has four of B&O’s distinctive “wagon top” cabooses, three of which presumably are deadheading. Classic Trains coll. […]
New York Central’s Chicago–Cincinnati streamliner, the James Whitcomb Riley, speeds past Illinois Central’s suburban-train station at 75th Street on the South Side of Chicago in 1947. The Riley left from IC’s Central Station on the lakefront and switched to NYC rails at Kankakee. Willard A. Gardner photo […]
Streamlined class I-5 Hudson 1406 accelerates the 15 cars of the New Haven’s westbound Yankee Clipper away from New London, Conn., in March 1947. Kent W. Cochrane photo […]
Burlington Route’s Chicago–Minneapolis Morning Zephyr forges west at Downers Grove, Ill., on a snowy January 13, 1948. The six-car train carries four dome cars, including a dome-observation. CB&Q photo […]