A Southern Pacific 2-8-0 pulls a log train on the Cloudcroft branch near Alamogordo, N.Mex. This view is from 1946, three years before the line was abandoned. Henry Garcia photo […]
SP logging train
Section: Railroads
Santa Fe’s Fast Mail and Chief
An A-B-B set of F7’s leads the Santa Fe’s Fast Mail Express toward Los Angeles at West Victorville, Calif., in 1950. The train’s 14-car consist is heavy with baggage, express, and mail storage cars, but it also includes a Railway Post Office car. A baggage-coach combine brought up the rear as a rider car for […]
1975-1982: Seven more years of change in Philadelphia
South of 30th Street Station in September 1980, an Amtrak E60 accelerates a train toward Washington while, in the background, SEPTA Silverliner IV’s head out on a commuter run to either Media/Elwyn or Wilmington. Robert S. McGonigal Bob Trennert, in his article “A West Coast Railfan in Philadelphia, 1967–1974” in the Spring 2013 issue of […]
California’s Salton Sea: A rail photo gallery
The Salton Sea in Southern California was formed in 1907 when men tried to redirect Colorado River irrigation canals and caused a two-year flood. It spans the intersection of two great deserts: the Mojave to the north and the Sonoran to the south and west. Summer temperatures routinely hover at 120 degrees. In the 1950s […]
See EMD’s Cat-painted locomotive
In September 2012, Electro-Motive Diesel sent a unique locomotive to the MINExpo show in Las Vegas: A typical SD70Ace painted in the colors of EMD’s parent company, Caterpillar. Trains magazine got exclusive access to this amazing 4,300-hp workhorse prior to its public debut the following month at the grand opening for the new Caterpillar visitor […]
Grand Central Station, Chicago
The Baltimore & Ohio’s passenger terminal in Chicago was Grand Central Station, built in 1890 to the plans of noted architect S. S. Bemen. The Wisconsin Central Railroad actually commissioned the station, but later sold it to the B&O; other users were Chicago Great Western and Pere Marquette. Grand Central was razed in 1970; its […]
North Western 4-6-4 at West Chicago
Chicago & North Western class E-4 streamlined Hudson sails through West Chicago, Ill., with one of the Union Pacific Challenger trains in September 1945. The second car in the train is a U.S. Army hospital car. Henry J. McCord photo […]
The 3 principles of great railway station photos
FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Victoria Station, Mumbai, India FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Victoria Station, Mumbai, India FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Dadar Station, India FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Haydarpasa Station, Istanbul FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Munich Station, Germany FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Munich Station, Germany FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka Augsburg Station, Germany FULL SCREEN Todd Halamka […]
Dashing through the snow
CSX train Q324 blasts out of the driving snow at old FC tower in Defiance, Ohio, on Dec. 26, 2012. Photo by Brian M. Schmidt […]
Duck, duck, belle?
Two Kansas City Southern “Southern Belles” cross the Kankakee River at Momence, Ill., on a southbound Union Pacific container train on July 16, 2011. The route between Chicago and Woodland Junction, Ill., is jointly operated by CSX and UP. Photo by Brian M. Schmidt […]
An aggravating situation, with a 1940s solution
Santa Fe 2-8-2 3243 climbs west toward Summit, Calif., in 1952. Chard Walker In the early 1940s, when steam locomotives were supreme, I worked on the Santa Fe around Los Angeles. At Redondo Junction, today the north end of the “Alameda Corridor” to the L.A. and Long Beach harbor facilities, Santa Fe’s Harbor Branch left […]
Grand Central photo gallery
Trains magazine celebrates Grand Central Terminal’s 100th anniversary in our February 2013 issue with a comprehensive look at America’s most famous railroad station, from its planning and construction a century ago, and the thwarted attempts to place a skyscraper above it in the 1960s, to the incredible restoration work completed in recent decades that has […]
