An A-B-A set of F units departs San Francisco with Southern Pacific train 372, the piggyback-heavy Advance Overnight for Los Angeles, in August 1955. William Harry photo […]
Early SP intermodal train
Section: Railroads
B&O “Dockside” 0-4-0T
Baltimore & Ohio No. 9 is one of four class C-16 0-4-0T switchers built in 1912 to work tight-radius street trackage along Baltimore harbor. Two were rebuilt as tender engines in the 1920s, but the other two worked as-built until several years after World War II. Their compact size made them a favorite among HO […]
5 Class I railroads with prominent narrow gauge in the 20th century
At the dawn of the 20th century, dusk was approaching for the narrow gauge (3 feet or smaller between the rails) fad that began roughly 30 years prior. As 4’ 8 ½” officially became the “standard” gauge, as it remains to this day, retaining multiple rail lines in different gauges no longer made sense for […]
Lackawanna’s great Pequest Fill
A 4-8-4 leads a freight east across the Lackawanna Railroad’s colossal Pequest Fill. At more than 3 miles long, Pequest was a major feature of the road’s 28.5-mile cutoff across the rough terrain of northern New Jersey. The line below is the Lehigh & Hudson River Railroad. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
Retail railroading
In a scene far removed from today’s unit and intermodal trains, a small boy watches as a shipment is loaded aboard the Union Transportation Co.’s daily train at New Egypt, N.J., in September 1958. The short line used locomotives and cabin cars leased from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Aaron G. Fryer photo […]
PRR’s first passenger diesel
Pennsylvania E7A 5901, one of the units constituting the big road’s first passenger diesel, teams up with an E7B and another E7A on a “Blue Ribbon” limited departing Chicago. This historic unit is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. PRR photo […]
GG1 to the rescue
Amtrak E60CH 966 on the Washington-bound Murray Hill has become disabled just south of Bowie, Md., on March 26, 1976. Sent out to rescue the one-year-old motor is Penn Central GG1 4885 — a 37-year veteran of the Northeast Corridor. Ray Brubacker photo […]
Santa Fe’s Barstow Yard
An early-1904s view of the Santa Fe’s big freight yard at Barstow, Calif., shows, at the left side of the photo, war materiel on flatcars. Santa Fe photo […]
Western corner of the B&O
Consolidation 2836 steams across a country road at Junction, Ill., with the every-other-day freight between Flora and Shawneetown in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Classic logging Mallet
The 2-6-6-2T Mallet, exemplified by Weyerhauser No. 9, was perhaps the ultimate development of the logging locomotive. Compact, powerful, and flexible, the type was ideally suited to pulling heavy loads over rough, sharply curved track. Geared locomotives like the Shay also possessed these traits, but could not make the speed of a rod engine. Baldwin […]
Trains Photo Contest 2026: The Unexpected
The 2026 contest theme is: The Unexpected Trains Magazine and the National Railway Historical Society are teaming up again to present the 2026 photo contest. This year’s theme: The Unexpected. A railroad photography adventure is much like a day fishing — you never know what you’re going to catch. You were expecting a pair of […]
Rock Island 4-8-4 at Joliet
Rock Island class R-67 Northern 5114 has just passed Joliet (Ill.) Union Station and crossed the GM&O/ATSF diamond as it steams toward Chicago with an eastbound freight in fall 1951. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
