BNSF Railway C44-9W No. 4956 leads an intermodal train east along the Mississippi River near Galena Junction, Ill., on Oct. 16, 2010. Photo by Steve Bauer […]
Backwaters
Zone & Region: Midwest
Foreigner
A set of borrowed Canadian Pacific family SD40-2s heads Norfolk Southern train No. 278 east on the old Wabash main near Illiopolis, Ill., on May 22, 2014. It’s a nice spring day and the engineer has the windows open enjoying the breeze as the train heads for Decatur. Photo by Bruce Bird […]
Corn City classic
CSX GE ES44DC No. 5251 leads a southbound ethanol train at Deshler, Ohio, on June 14, 2014. For now, the classic Baltimore & Ohio color position light bracket signal remains. Photo by Dale A. DeVene Jr. […]
Waiting game
CSX train Q216 waits, with a Canadian Pacific leader, while a Norfolk Southern train heads west through the Vickers interlocking in Northwood, Ohio, on Jan. 18, 2014. The CSX crew spent a lot of time waiting this morning while NS ran its traffic first through this suburban Toledo crossing. Photo by Michael D. Harding […]
Cousins
Two Alco switchers, one active and one derelict, call the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wis., home. Here, on May 31, 2014, one pulls an excursion train around the railroad’s loop track. Both are painted for the Green Bay & Western. Photo by Brian Schmidt […]
Kindnesses on the Omaha Road
Omaha Road 4-6-2 No. 500 departs Minneapolis with a train for Superior, Wis., in August 1950. Bob Borcherding At nearly 70 years of age, I am still enthralled at the passage of trains. Today’s trains—often featuring high-horsepower diesel locomotives, radio-controlled helpers, rotary-dump coal cars by the unit-trainload, and containers carrying products from halfway around the […]
Whizzer
The Wisconsin & Southern, affectionately known as the “Whizzer” to local railfans, whizzes through Waukesha, Wis., on June 2, 2014. Photo by Brian Schmidt […]
Book Review: Rock Island Requiem: The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line
Rock Island Requiem: The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line By Gregory L. Schneider University Press of Kansas, 2502 Westbrooke Cir., Lawrence, KS 66045; 392 pages, 26 photos; hardcover, 6.125 x 9.25 in.; $37.50 This impressive volume chronicles the long, sad decline of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and illustrates how federal regulation […]
Twin Cities’ passenger trains through the years
FULL SCREEN St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press, Minnesota Historical Society Collection Burlington’s Zephyr‘s gather at St. Paul Union Depot on Sept. 29, 1948. FULL SCREEN Ronald Lundstrom Freshly painted SD45s Nos. 407 and 412 power a Great Northern director’s special at St. Paul Union Depot in the mid 1960s. FULL SCREEN Byron D. Olsen The Milwaukee […]
Rollin’
New crude oil tank cars roll west on Canadian Pacific rails through Duplainville, Wis., on Jan. 12, 2014. Photo by Brian Schmidt […]
Toledo Train Day
Locomotives and rail cars are lined up on display at the 2014 National Train Day exhibit in Toledo, Ohio, on May 3. Photo by Joe Kohnen […]
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 […]
