Newly inducted soldiers at Maryland’s Fort George G. Meade are lined up to board a Baltimore & Ohio troop train in May 1953. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
“All aboard — and that’s an order!”
A 4-4-0 in 1952
Chicago & Illinois Midland 4-4-0 No. 500, built by Baldwin at the late date of 1927, pulls away from Hill Top, Ill., with the daily-except-Sunday train from Pekin to Springfield, Ill. The date is May 20, 1952 — late in the game indeed for American types on Class I railroads. Ed Theisinger photo […]
GM&O’s “Plug”
Gulf, Mobile & Ohio F3 883-A leads the road’s weekday commuter train to Joliet away from Chicago Union Station not long before GM&O merged with Illinois Central to form Illinois Central Gulf. The little train was widely known as “The Plug.” John R. Taibi photo […]
Stalled on Kirkwood Hill
Greasy rails on Missouri Pacific’s Kirkwood Hill west of St. Louis have brought 2-10-2 helper No. 1716 and 4-8-4 road engine No. 2111 to a halt in March 1946. The train got moving again with an assist from an 0-8-0. Joe Collias photo […]
GTW 4-8-4 on a freight
Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 6317 approaches South Bend (Ind.) Union Station with a westbound freight in April 1948. A dozen years later, GTW would become one of the final Class I railroads to use steam power. Andrew Corsini photo […]
C&NW steam excursion
Chicago & North Western class D 4-4-2 395 and 4-6-2 647 head west through a cut at Wales, Wis., with an excursion train on a triangular Chicago–Milwaukee–Madison–Chicago routing in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Super-Power citadel
The Lima Locomotive Works plant in Lima, Ohio, birthplace of hundreds of advanced “Super-Power” steam locomotives, occupied a triangular site on the city’s south side between B&O and Nickel Plate lines. Classic Trains coll. […]
GG1 at Swarthmore
GG1 4903 heads a westbound rush-hour commuter train at Swarthmore, Pa., sometime during World War II. A mainline motor like this was a rarity on PRR’s West Chester Branch. George Gillespie As were many railroads during the busy World War II years, the Pennsylvania Railroad was hard-pressed for equipment. Many of us remember seeing locomotives and […]
Sumpter Valley Malley
2-6-6-2 Mallet No. 250 of the 3-foot-gauge Sumpter Valley Railway in northeast Oregon rolls a train of lumber toward the Union Pacific interchange at Baker, Ore., in 1946. The SV was abandoned in 1948, but a portion has been revived as a museum and tourist railway. Henry R. Griffiths photo […]
Super Streamliners: Dazzling passenger trains from the classic era of rail travel
Long before the advent of diesels and lightweight equipment, streamliners shaped “high-speed rail” in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. In this free, 35-page download, we revisit the classic streamliner era. This series includes: The Great Chicago-Twin Cities Speed War: How intense competition between Burlington Route, Milwaukee Road, and Chicago & North Western drastically reduced daytime […]
Seaboard Coast Line in Florida
Watch video clips of Seaboard Coast Line passenger and freight trains in Florida from the Herron Rail Video program Classic Florida Rails, Volume 1. […]
Return trip to Tucumcari
Tucumcari, July 1963: Nameless Los Angeles–Chicago train 40 has arrived with SP power and will depart behind Rock Island FP7 409. The RDC foreground is on the rear of Rock Island 22 for Memphis. Richard J. Anderson It was a hot day in the summer of 1963. I was driving from my home in Iowa […]
