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Forty years ago, there was a lot going on in “Train World.” New museums, mainline steam programs, railroad-specific historical societies, and innovative preservation projects spawned a sense that railroad heritage had entered a different, more mature, phase. There were conversations about the emerging “railway heritage movement.” In hindsight, that was a tad optimistic. It had […]
Has any class of homebuilt, remanufactured mainline steam locomotive ever performed as brilliantly as the Reading T-1 4-8-4? Given the long lives of four from its illustrious class of 30 engines, I’d say no. I came to this conclusion during a recent visit to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, which has announced that ex-RDG […]
When the long-anticipated “Hill Lines” merger finally created the Burlington Northern on March 2, 1970, it was time not to mourn the loss of a favorite, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, but to embrace and record the details of the changeover. I had been through this six years before, when the Norfolk & Western […]
Q: The historic cars for the Milwaukee, Racine & Troy featured in the January 2025 episode of Ask Trains were very interesting (I grew up in Spokane, Portland & Seattle territory and am modeling some of that). What sort of steam and early diesel power would have been used to go with the cars of […]
It was an oddball branch line with a just-as-odd history that is still worth recounting. The Rio Grande’s Farmington Branch was built in 1905 to connect Carbon Junction, Colo. (just outside of Durango to the southeast), and Farmington, N.M. It was a modest, 47.68-mile standard gauge line (later narrow gauge) that followed the […]
Missouri Pacific history is easier to understand if the railroad is considered in three parts: the lines west of St. Louis, the lines south and southwest of St. Louis, and the lines in Texas and Louisiana. Lines west of St. Louis Ground was broken for the Pacific Railroad at St. Louis, Mo., on […]
Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Smoking is a habit that’s never appealed to me. No smoking for me. During my time as conductor for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, many of my engineers smoked. There was no choice for me but to grin and bear it. I never got used to it, but as long […]
Office cars Prior to Amtrak, railroads had coupled company owned business and office cars to the rear of passenger trains for the convenience of executive and management personnel. The usually spotless and well maintained fleet of comfortably furnished cars also served as sales offices on wheels for the railroad’s industrial development and traffic departments, allowing […]
Strictly speaking, Grand Trunk Western is not a “fallen flag.” GTW still reports to regulators as a separate Class I railroad, but since Jan. 1, 1996, GTW has been submerged in the identity of its parent, Canadian National. These days, operation and management of GTW are integrated with the 2,650-mile former Illinois Central and […]
Rotary snowplow I missed my fair share of calls in my railroad career, but I only remember one with a specific date. That would be Jan. 12, 1993. Only two times have I ever seen a rotary snowplow in action, both happened to be the same week in January of 1993 but on different railroads. […]
Q: Many of Model Railroader’s articles, reviews, and advertisements focus on products representing the “modern” era, say the 1940s to the present. That’s OK, and much of your audience obviously enjoys modeling contemporary railroading. However, I’m interested in modeling the railroad industry as it was in the 19th century. Can you suggest the names of […]
California’s high-speed rail Rod Diridon Sr., 85, a crusader for high speed rail, grew up in the small Northern California town of Dunsmuir. There, he worked for the Southern Pacific during summers and vacations when he was a college student, starting in the late 1950s. The steam era was ending, but steam-era technology was […]
