A Union Pacific ethanol train led by AC4400CW No. 7007 skirts the Carquinez Strait at sunset. The train is passing Eckley Pier with the wrecked remains of the steamship Garden City in the water. Photo by Brian Roberts […]
Coast twilight
Section: Railroads
What kind of day did you have?
Bystanders inspect a sedan deluged with coke during a derailment of an L&N train in Chattanooga. C. K. Marsh Jr. One day in 1965, a friend and I were searching for the obscure terminal of the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railroad in the Alton Park section of Chattanooga. Coming up on a railroad crossing, we […]
A glimpse at today’s streetcars
FULL SCREEN Mike Bjork One of the benefits of streetcars is that they introduce mass transit on the city streets where people park their cars, drive to work, and walk. A perfect example of that is with Portland’s original streetcar line where a person is about to cross in front of a northbound streetcar on […]
Big Boy No. 4014’s return to Cheyenne
Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 returned to Cheyenne, Wyo., on May 8, 2014, and Trains Editor Jim Wrinn was there to record the moment when the 4-8-8-4 and its tender inched back into the railroad’s steam shops. Only from Trains! […]
Desert skyscraper
A BNSF Railway eastbound passes a disused water tower at Bellmont, Ariz., on July 5, 2013, on the former Santa Fe main line. Photo by Michael T. Burkhart […]
Right-of-way
Looking out of place, two CSX GEs take Canadian Pacific train No. 470 down North Second Street in Bellevue, Iowa, on Jan. 19, 2014. Photo by Matt Krause […]
Local hero
With a short five-car train, Canadian National’s local out of Dubuque, Iowa, has just crossed the Mississippi River and pops out of the short tunnel in East Dubuque, IL. The train will travel down the BNSF Railway using trackage to an industry that CN switches before calling it a day and returning home after dark. Photo […]
C&EI’s Meadowlark
E7 diesel 1101 leads Chicago & Eastern Illinois’ southbound Meadowlark at 63rd Street station (“Little Englewood”), Chicago, in the late 1940s. The obscure orange-and-blue streamliner terminated at the unlikely location of Cyprus, Ill. (population 300). William N. Clark photo […]
The Erie’s Otisville tunnel
The concrete west portal of Erie’s Otisville (N.Y.) tunnel — from which a Berkshire-powered freight emerges — is fairly simple, but with pilasters and the inscription “19–OTISVILLE–08” in embossed lettering overhead. Note the early installation of welded rail on the eastward track. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
Pennsy T1 on the Broadway
PRR T1 4-4-4-4 No. 5507 clatters through 21st Street interlocking in Chicago with the Broadway Limited for New York. A T1 on the Broadway is relatively rare, as dieselization of PRR’s top trains came soon after the giant duplexes arrived. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Chessie System freight at Keystone Viaduct
An SD40 and GP9 hold back a westbound freight as they descend Sand Patch Grade a couple of miles west of Sand Patch, Pa., on the former Baltimore & Ohio. The bridge overhead carried the Western Maryland main line, which was rendered redundant when B&O and WM came under common Chessie System control. David Dudjak […]
CN 2-8-0 at Chipman, N.B.
Canadian National 2-8-0 No. 2444, assigned as the switcher in Chipman, N.B., negotiates the steep grade and tight curves at the town’s brickyard on a gray day in November 1953. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
