On creating the world’s largest fusee

C of Denver lv Chi

Union Pacific’s City of Denver curves away from North Western Station in Chicago at the start of its run west. Sister streamliner City of Portland once made an unscheduled stop at Oak Park, 9 miles west. Wallace W. Abbey In spring 1955, I was working as a ticket clerk at Chicago & North Western’s Oak […]

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Florida East Coast scheduled trains

Direction Southbound (read down)         Train No. 101 107 109 111 121 123 335 Frequency Daily Daily Ex. Sun., Mon. Ex. Fri., Sat, Daily Ex. Sat. Ex. Sat., Sun. Type CSX, NS, Bowden intermodal (UPS), autos NS, Bowden intermodal (UPS), autos Empty rock, manifest Intermodal, manifest, autos CSX, NS, FEC intermodal, autos […]

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Niagara on the run

20141126

New York Central 4-8-4 Niagara 6023 is near the end of its short life as it rambles through Millbury Junction, Ohio, (7.5 miles east of Toledo) with nine-car mail-and-express train X-78 in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Turbine orphan

20141125

Westinghouse and partner Baldwin fielded an experimental 4,000 h.p. B-B+B-B gas-turbine-electric in 1950. Dubbed the “Blue Goose” because of its paint scheme (and perhaps for its unusual appearance), No. 4000, pictured at Chicago on the Chicago & North Western, generated no orders. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]

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Riding Amtrak’s new electrics

On June 2, 2014, Trains Passenger correspondent Bob Johnston was in the cab of Amtrak ACS-64 electric locomotive 600, joining engineer Darren Avila, road foreman T.C. Williamson Jr., and signal supervisor Joe DiGiacomo aboard Northeast Regional train No. 184 from Washington D.C., to Wilmington, Del. His cover story in the January 2015 issue, “Amtrak’s new […]

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A month in the life of 4 freight cars

Dayinthelife

This map shows how four freight cars, threading their way through the North American railroad network, can take about two weeks to cross half the continent. The shippers using these four cars enjoyed tremendous efficiencies by sharing the costs of train crews and locomotives, track and signaling, classification yards, and overhead expenses with the other […]

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Video Review: Big Boy: On the Road to Restoration

BigBoyDVD

Big Boy: On the Road to Restoration By Trains Magazine Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, Waukesha, WI 53187; 1 hour and 30 minutes, NTSC format. The steam story of the decade is Union Pacific’s announcement that it is going to repatriate and restore one of the eight surviving 4-8-8-4 Big Boy steam locomotives. Folks […]

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P5a’s on a PRR freight

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Two Pennsylvania Railroad P5a electrics roll northward with a freight at Halethorpe, Md., in the 1940s. Early P5a’s had box-cab carbodies; later versions with streamlined bodies, such as this pair, were known as “P5a modifieds.” Frank Clodfelter photo […]

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Hi-cubes and fruit cans

NYC8288

NYC RS3 8288 — a “little diesel” to the author as a pre-schooler — heads a westbound way freight along the Hudson River at Peekskill in 1959. Nine years later and 29 miles down the river a hi-cube car ran into trouble. Karl R. Zimmermann Between the 1910s, when the New York Central electrified its […]

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Vermont Rail System locomotive roster

NOTES: 1. Owned by Ogdensburg Bridge & Port Authority 2. Lettered Washington County Railroad 3. Painted in 50th anniversary scheme 4. Built as ACL GP7 No. 103 in 1950, rebuilt by SCL to GP16 ABBREVIATIONS: CLP – Clarendon & Pittsford Railroad GMRC – Green Mountain Railroad NY&OC – New York & Ogdensburg Railway VTR – […]

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