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Women in railroading Research deflates the idea that a woman’s place was in the home in the 19th century. In 1838, during the Industrial Revolution when women were already working many jobs outside of the home, railroads employed female car attendants. In the 1800s, the most important breakthrough for women in railroading came when women […]
The rainbow fleet — on May 1, 1971, the passenger train at the station was Amtrak, but it sure didn’t look that way. Locomotives and cars from the railroads buying into Amtrak were pooled to keep passengers moving along. It was a rainbow of equipment and color. This leads us to five mind-blowing facts — […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Brian Solomon: My first photo appeared 1984; this was a black & white photo of a Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts trip on the Central Vermont Railway at Brattleboro, Vt. It featured a pair of F40PHs back to back in driving rain. My first trains written byline was early […]
Abandoned routes It can be disheartening to study a railroad atlas and come across abandoned routes. Nobody wants to realize a line is gone, especially if we had previously witnessed it as an active transportation entity. Well, let’s take a pen and cross off that line. No! It’s rare that the remnants of an abandoned […]
Wabtec In the rail world today, Wabtec is viewed as the company that bought General Electric’s locomotive production. This is the simple version of the story. When we trace Wabtec to its roots, we find that, as many of us know, the company is also known for an invention that revolutionized railroad safety — the […]
What’s in a name? An engineer’s life: Nicknames have long been a part of railroading. This is the story of how I came to be called “Mad Dog.” I hired out at Burlington Northern’s Auburn Yard in August of 1978. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn’t the only Michael Sawyer around those parts. One day, early […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Dan Cupper: It was a 10-page cover feature for January 1984, detailing Conrail’s E8-model passenger locomotive No. 4022, used for powering the road’s office-car fleet on inspection tours. At the time, I was working as a reporter for the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot-News newspapers and had written a full-page […]
Trains are just as American as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. What’s even better is combining these. Imagine sitting back in the stands, munching a hot dog, watching a ballgame, and a train rumbles past outside the right-field fence. Could summertime be any better? This is high iron baseball — exploring independent leagues More […]
We continue our look at the best ballparks to catch a game and a train with a few stops on the AAA minor league circuit. High iron baseball — AAA minor league stadiums More than half of the nation’s 240 professional baseball stadiums have a railroad connection — built next to a railroad, located on […]
Bessie and Roxey Two things children love are dogs and trains. This idea inspired Heather Hill Worthington, a children’s books author, to write a story about a dog named Roxey — a dog who was a mascot on the Long Island Rail Road between 1901 and 1914. Naturally, a children’s book needs illustrations to captivate […]
Mind-blowing beer and train facts Beer arrived first, but the railroads helped this favorite beverage grow to national prominence. The beer in your glass, however, is not the whole story. Throughout history there are many twists and turns in the relationship between beer and trains. Here are five mind-blowing beer and train facts. No. 1: […]
East Broad Top Railroad freight cars tell the story of a narrow-gauge railroad that was ahead of its time. Here’s what you should know about this mostly home-built fleet that survives today at the National Historic Landmark in Pennsylvania. Hoppers In the common-carrier era, East Broad Top lived off coal as its main traffic. The […]
