The 4-6-6-4 Challenger was the most successful articulated steam locomotive design. Rating steam locomotives is a risky business. You might easily compare engines by weight or length or lists of accessories, but actual performance — judged by the engineering standards of 2023 — is somewhat subjective. It would be an exaggeration to say […]
Climax Class A logging locomotive As steam locomotives go, logging engines aren’t the most attractive specimens out there. They’re the railroad version of the long-standing joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. But let’s not get hung up on appearances. These engines carved out their own niche in the very lucrative […]
Control cars Always looking for more effective ways to be a railroad, Union Pacific in the early 2000s experimented with what was perceived as a better method of performing switching using remote-control locomotives. Traditionally, a regular locomotive is outfitted with remote-control equipment and assigned to those duties. That’s all well and good until the equipped […]
Five common shortline diesel locomotives in North America: When it comes to short lines and regional railroads, differences abound. Their location, size and overall operation makes each stand out from one another. It’s usually true with motive power too, but railroads can and do populate their rosters with common locomotives that have proved their worth […]
The Morrison-Knudsen MK5000C was but a footnote to 1990s locomotive history. It kind of resembled an EMD six-axle road switcher. Or maybe a GE/Wabtec unit. But the cab didn’t quite seem to fit either one. It looked brutish, well-defined, powerful, and ready to pull as many cars as you could couple to it. […]
The best-selling Alco diesel locomotives came from the switcher, cab unit, and road switcher product lines. The American Locomotive Co. was North America’s second-largest manufacturer of steam locomotives. The company began making the transition to internal combustion early, building diesel locomotives in the 1920s while continuing to build steam locomotives (which it did until 1948). […]
The biggest 4-6-2 Pacific came from a surprisingly small railroad. Any history of the American steam locomotive must save some superlatives for the 4-6-2 Pacific. The wheel arrangement allowed a wide variety of design and performance, such that approximately 6,000 were manufactured in the first half of the 20th century, all in the […]
Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee equipment set it apart from other electric interurban lines. Please enjoy this photo gallery selected from files in Kalmbach Media‘s David P. Morgan Library. Each month since October 2019, Classic Trains editors have selected one Fallen Flag to honor. A Fallen Flag is a railroad whose name and heritage have succumbed […]
Upgrading locomotives Upgrading locomotives: If you haven’t already noticed, a motive power renaissance is occurring at short lines and regionals across the country. Smaller railroads are always getting power that’s newer or better than what they currently have. However, recently this change is more pronounced. It’s driven by a top-down push, starting with the Class […]
East Broad Top Railroad locomotives make up a big piece to a bigger puzzle that is the preserved narrow-gauge railroad in Rockhill, Pennsylvania. The 33-mile line served the iron furnaces and coal mines from 1874 until freight haulage came to an end on April 6, 1956. Tourist operations on a short section of the railroad […]
Think of the GMD-1 as the Canadian prairie locomotive. With a legacy stretching six decades the EMD GMD-1 (General Motors Diesel of Canada) was a locomotive model that was used exclusively in Canada by the Canadian National and the Northern Alberta Railways. Build at the General Motors Diesel plant in London, Ontario, the 1,200-horsepower diesel […]
Starting its nearly half century of service, EMD GP15-1 locomotives are still going strong on regional short lines around the country as proof that old EMDs can still pull todays manifest traffic. Built by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division between 1976 and 1982, the four-axle GP15-1 was a way for railroads to purchase new power instead […]
