Orphan Trains The orphan train story does not involve a specific train consist, locomotive, route, or even schedule. The story comes from a period that was socially different from today — 1854 to 1930. Attitudes about the idea of family, how parents cared for children, and the dichotomy between well-off and not, were radically different […]
Down memory lane Down memory lane: Ever find yourself bumping into the same locomotive over the decades? I have. For me, it is former Southern Pacific’s Electro Motive Corporation SW1 No. 1000. My first encounter was in the 1960s in Northern California, the only model on the roster not working in the greater Los Angeles […]
Roosevelt Road used to be ‘the’ Chicago railfan road. On less than a mile of viaducts just south of downtown, fans could catch passenger trains to and from many of the great Chicago passenger stations and associated coach yards. But intercity trains now only call at Union Station, and while commuters still roll, several iconic […]
Them’s the breaks Late afternoon on Jan. 30, 2007, my conductor and I were called for the SSEALPC — a stack train from Seattle to Logistics Park, Elwood, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Our train that day was FURX No. 8117 as the lead unit of six, trailing us were 63 loads, zero empties, 5,924 […]
Chicago & Eastern Illinois locomotives served the road well through many decades of operation. C&EI was a coal-hauling railroad and, other than some early switchers, stuck with steam through World War II. Three E7s and a bunch of F3s made quick work of dieselizing the line from 1946 onward, with the last steam […]
Amtrak GP40 diesel locomotives came in two flavors: eight former GO Transit GP40TCs acquired in October 1988 and 15 straight GP40s leased between May 1991 and June 1993. The 3,000 hp GP40 is a standard bearer of freight motive power in the second half of the 20th century. Introduced by EMD in 1968, the model […]
Walking out the 15th Street side entrance to Detroit’s Michigan Central Station last Friday morning, I found myself channeling the great baseball play-by-play man Jack Buck. “I can’t believe what I just saw!” Buck’s epic quote came, of course, when Dodger Kirk Gibson launched his epic home run off A’s reliever Dennis Eckersley in game […]
DC-to-AC rebuild During the middle of May, Canadian National tested its first modified DC-to-AC rebuild on an ore train in northern Minnesota. This is the first step to replacing a fleet of older General Electric locomotives that were built over three decades ago and currently handle the majority of the region’s ore. Canadian National’s Minnesota […]
My first regular assignment as a brakeman on the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in 1977 was one that no one else wanted. In accordance with my union’s working agreement, when a job could not be filled voluntarily, the most junior employee was “forced” to work it. The morning after being notified by the crew clerk, […]
The Budd Co. and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy went hand in hand in building the streamlined Zephyr fleet, though the Midwestern railroad wasn’t the only customer to the car manufacturer. By 1941, the company produced nearly 500 stainless-steel passenger cars to more than a dozen railroads. The 1939 Silver Meteor and 1941 Empire State Express […]
Vermont railroading The State of Vermont purchased 177 miles of the former Rutland Railroad in 1963, two years after the 400-mile railroad was abandoned. The newly formed Vermont Railway leased the 125 miles running north south between Bennington and Burlington, and a year later the Green Mountain Railroad leased 52 miles between Rutland and Bellows […]
Union Pacific steam locomotive Every operating steam locomotive you see: Union Pacific No. 4014, Canadian Pacific No. 2816, NKP No. 756, Reading & Northern No. 2102, and many others all have one thing in common. They are always clean. It does not matter how large or small they are, how old they are, or what […]
