Whether they knew it or not, the Budd Co. was rolling out the final miles in its railcar manufacturing business as it headed into the 1970s. But they didn’t go down without a fight as manufacturing of passenger equipment continued for Amtrak and multiple commuter operations (mainly in the Northeast United States). Part of […]
The Cotton Belt’s Blue Streak rolls west of Mount Pleasant, Texas, on Oct. 1, 1931. The train is led by 4-6-0 No. 659, built by Baldwin in 1913. Formally known as the St. Louis Southwestern, the railroad began as the 3-foot-gauge Tyler Tap Railroad between Tyler and Big Sandy, Texas, in the 1870s. Harold K. Vollrath […]
The U23B was General Electric’s competitor to the EMD GP38. The little U-boat has a 12-cylinder FDL engine, necessitating six tall engine access doors on each side. Buyers included Santa Fe, Conrail, Delaware & Hudson, Lehigh Valley, Milwaukee Road (pictured), Monon, Penn Central, Western Pacific, and others. Most rode on AAR type B trucks, but […]
Snow begins to melt on an early spring day in 1974 as two six-axle General Electric “U-boats” head south along Seneca Lake at Geneva, N.Y., on the former New York Central “Fall Brook” line. Ken Kraemer photo […]
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific had a fleet of 85 4-8-4 Northerns, largest in the country. Here, No. 5058 leads a westbound freight near Lawrence, Kans., in January 1952. Robert P. Olmsted photo […]
The remains of Santa Fe GP38 No. 3552 lie in a ditch following a sideswipe incident at Booth, Texas, on April 14, 1973. A southbound train struck the rear cars of a northbound train. The subsequent derailment and fire destroyed three GP38s. Steve Patterson photo […]
I have always had a thing for “class units,” that is, the first in a series, and “my engine” is Illinois Central SD40 6000, delivered in late 1967 in the then-new orange and white color scheme. I have a custom-painted HO scale model of it, weathered in that livery. Best of all, during my […]
The Rio Grande’s Tennessee Pass line traversed Colorado’s Royal Gorge west of Pueblo on the road’s route to Utah. Here, the Royal Gorge passenger train with an Alco PA for power pauses for its customary sightseeing stop in its namesake. W. A. Peters photo […]
Chicago & North Western train 6, heavy with mail and express, speeds east near Dekalb, Ill., in 1949. H-1 class 4-8-4 No. 3014 is one of 24 such rebuilt locomotives on the roster, built by Baldwin in 1929 as the H class and retired between 1950 and 1956. Classic Trains collection […]
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For World War II, the U.S. military adopted a six-axle variation of Alco’s 1941 RS1 for overseas duty. U.S. Army No. 8052 is shown at Tehran, Iran, in 1945. Alco photo […]
Officially a Burlington Northern train but looking just as it had under the Northern Pacific, the North Coast Limited pauses at Butte, Mont., on April 10, 1970, just over a month after the merger. The train retains a complete set of equipment in the paint scheme by famous industrial designer Raymond Loewy. Steve Patterson photo […]
