Join Assistant Editor Brian Schmidt for a look at BNSF Railway’s famed “Racetrack,” the former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy main line between Chicago and Aurora, Ill. You’ll see fast freights along with Amtrak and Metra passenger moves along the triple-track speedway at the Naperville and Route 59 stations. For more Chicago railroading, be sure to […]
Extra tall fences (seen on the overpass in the background) often protect electrified lines from road debris. Michael S. Murray Q I have driven over the Northeast Corridor and have seen guardrails on the bridge get higher over the tracks themselves. Why is that? – Dan Wescott, Louisburg, N.C. A The primary reason higher barriers […]
The Nickel Plate carried a lot of meat traffic from Chicago and other cities. Here, Berkshire No. 776, with two Swift cars at the head end, rushes a long string of meat reefers east near Vermilion, Ohio, in 1957. H. S. Ludlow photo […]
FULL SCREEN John Bjorklund, collection of Center for Railroad Photography and Art A Burlington Northern commuter train arrives at Chicago Union Station in July 1971, as seen from Roosevelt Road. FULL SCREEN John Bjorklund, collection of Center for Railroad Photography and Art A Burlington Northern commuter train arrives at west suburban Riverside, Ill., in July […]
Three Pennsylvania Railroad self-propelled motor cars (“doodlebugs”) layover near Penn Station, Baltimore, in May 1955. The cars worked commuter runs on the old Northern Central to New Freedom, Pa. Classic Trains coll. […]
Eastbound West Point Route freight 208, with characteristically dirty black GPs, switches at Opelika, Ala., in June 1976. David Harris photo […]
In a view from the fireman’s seat on one Western Pacific train, FTs on another enter the siding at lonely Reynard, Nev., in October 1951. Norman Holmes photo […]
A passenger train departs Waynesburg, Pa., in 1907 on the Waynesburg & Washington, a 28-mile-long, 3-foot-gauge pike that came under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1885. Waynesburg University Museum collection […]
A set of Pennsylvania Railroad GP9s climbs the east slope of Allegheny Mountain with piggyback train TT1 in September 1956. Trains magazine Editor David P. Morgan, researching a story on PRR’s Altoona–Pittsburgh operations, rides the cab of the second unit. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Artwork from a booklet promoting the Milwaukee Road’s 1947 Olympian Hiawatha shows the interior of a 14-section “Touralux” sleeping car. Classic Trains coll. […]
Rio Grande F3 diesels grind upgrade at Mitchell, Colo., a mile east of the summit of Tennessee Pass, in October 1947. Two steam helpers provide assistance on the 3-percent grade. L. O. Merrill photo […]
New York Central F7 1678 leads westbound freight Advance LS-7 past BE Tower at Berea, Ohio, in 1957. Richard J. Cook photo […]
