Sandfly Express Go ahead, talk about the glitzy Orient Express. Or the extended run of the Trans-Siberian Express. But what about the Buffalo & Fort Erie Ferry & Railway Co.? This early 1900s Canadian railroad, born antiquated, ran a 3-mile course in Fort Erie, Ontario, which is across the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y. Its […]
The story of Mad Dog and the volcano starts on March 20, 1980. At 3:47 p.m. on that day, Mount St. Helens rumbled to life with an earthquake measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale. It was mostly unnoticed. Earthquakes often occur in Washington State, most are light enough not to be felt. Within a week […]
The Big Boy Men William M. Jeffers, Union Pacific Railroad president, and Otto Jabelmann, vice president — research and mechanical standards, began their careers in the lowest ranking positions. Both men were known for their tempers and a belief that the only way to get a job done was to do it with their own […]
Saluda Grade The famous Saluda Grade in western North Carolina has seen its last train. Railbanked in December 2001, nature has slowly but surely reclaimed the right-of-way. Now, in 2023, an agreement has been reached to sell the railroad to become a hiking trail. Let’s look back at the years when Norfolk Southern operated the […]
When the Amtrak car inspector standing in the doorway of one of Bennett Levin’s majestically restored EMD E8 locomotives asked if I used to run them, I replied, “You bet I did.” “Remember how to do a brake test on one?” he asked, hinting that he didn’t. “If anyone does, it has to be you.” I reminded him that […]
Women in railroading Research deflates the idea that a woman’s place was in the home in the 19th century. In 1838, during the Industrial Revolution when women were already working many jobs outside of the home, railroads employed female car attendants. In the 1800s, the most important breakthrough for women in railroading came when women […]
The rainbow fleet — on May 1, 1971, the passenger train at the station was Amtrak, but it sure didn’t look that way. Locomotives and cars from the railroads buying into Amtrak were pooled to keep passengers moving along. It was a rainbow of equipment and color. This leads us to five mind-blowing facts — […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Brian Solomon: My first photo appeared 1984; this was a black & white photo of a Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts trip on the Central Vermont Railway at Brattleboro, Vt. It featured a pair of F40PHs back to back in driving rain. My first trains written byline was early […]
Abandoned routes It can be disheartening to study a railroad atlas and come across abandoned routes. Nobody wants to realize a line is gone, especially if we had previously witnessed it as an active transportation entity. Well, let’s take a pen and cross off that line. No! It’s rare that the remnants of an abandoned […]
Wabtec In the rail world today, Wabtec is viewed as the company that bought General Electric’s locomotive production. This is the simple version of the story. When we trace Wabtec to its roots, we find that, as many of us know, the company is also known for an invention that revolutionized railroad safety — the […]
What’s in a name? An engineer’s life: Nicknames have long been a part of railroading. This is the story of how I came to be called “Mad Dog.” I hired out at Burlington Northern’s Auburn Yard in August of 1978. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t the only Michael Sawyer around those parts. One day, early […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Dan Cupper: It was a 10-page cover feature for January 1984, detailing Conrail’s E8-model passenger locomotive No. 4022, used for powering the road’s office-car fleet on inspection tours. At the time, I was working as a reporter for the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News newspapers and had written a full-page […]
