Niagara on the run

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New York Central 4-8-4 Niagara 6023 is near the end of its short life as it rambles through Millbury Junction, Ohio, (7.5 miles east of Toledo) with nine-car mail-and-express train X-78 in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Turbine orphan

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Westinghouse and partner Baldwin fielded an experimental 4,000 h.p. B-B+B-B gas-turbine-electric in 1950. Dubbed the “Blue Goose” because of its paint scheme (and perhaps for its unusual appearance), No. 4000, pictured at Chicago on the Chicago & North Western, generated no orders. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]

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P5a’s on a PRR freight

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Two Pennsylvania Railroad P5a electrics roll northward with a freight at Halethorpe, Md., in the 1940s. Early P5a’s had box-cab carbodies; later versions with streamlined bodies, such as this pair, were known as “P5a modifieds.” Frank Clodfelter photo […]

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Hi-cubes and fruit cans

NYC8288

NYC RS3 8288 — a “little diesel” to the author as a pre-schooler — heads a westbound way freight along the Hudson River at Peekskill in 1959. Nine years later and 29 miles down the river a hi-cube car ran into trouble. Karl R. Zimmermann Between the 1910s, when the New York Central electrified its […]

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Seaboard Air Line at Melrose, N.C.

Red caboose on rear of freight train

Watch 8mm home movies from 1945-46 of Seaboard Air Line steam and diesel action around Melrose, N.C. From the collection of James H. D. Helms Jr., whose father took the movies and whose grandfather was an SAL conductor. […]

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Super Bowl Sunday on the Santa Fe

ATSF-HigginsTX

At frosty Higgins, Texas, on the Santa Fe, author Metzger’s crane parts sit sidetracked as SD40-2s pass with a freight. Bill Metzger While my hometown Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Seattle Seahawks in the 2007 Super Bowl, I got to thinking about where I was the last time the Steelers won football’s biggest game. It […]

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LOCOMOTIVE’S 2014 ROSTER

MRLRoster

Tom Danneman Trains Art Director Tom Danneman takes you inside Montana Rail Link’s Livingston, Mont., shop for a typical day at the railroads’ main locomotive maintenance facility in “Backstage at Livingston” in Locomotive 2014. Explore the regional’s entire all-EMD roster here and read the intriguing story about Montana Rail Link’s shop in Locomotive 2014. Order your copy now. No. […]

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Three major NYC yards

Selkirk Yard-BEV

Selkirk Yard near Albany, N.Y. New York Central Cornerstone of New York Central’s $25 million “Castleton Cutoff” improvement project, Selkirk opened on November 20, 1924. Central’s objective was to bypass congestion at Albany, where two Hudson River drawbridges and the “Water Level Route’s” one big bump, the 1.75 percent West Albany grade between the Hudson […]

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Jacksonville Terminal in the 1940s

Headhouse-and-platforms-BEV

Headhouse and platforms Jacksonville Terminal Co. Jacksonville Terminal was a monument to Florida’s status as the southern vacation destination of choice for the eastern half of the U.S. Few travelers got off here; instead, the city was the funnel for trains arriving over the Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, and Southern Railway on their […]

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Montreal circa 1952

CPs St Luc Yard roundhouse-BEV

CP’s St. Luc Yard roundhouse Walter R. Allen for CPR Canadian Pacific in July 1950 opened its sprawling new St. Luc Yard in the “wilds” above the cities of Lachine and Cote St. Luc, Quebec. Built to relieve congestion at CPR’s Hochelaga and Outremont Yards in Montreal, St. Luc included this 37-stall roundhouse, completed in […]

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