When Editor Wrinn mentioned his idea for an upcoming editorial (“BNSF, CSX, Please Buy a Vowel,”page 4, February 2008), I was in total agreement. I mentioned to him that since we were going ahead and renaming BNSF to Great Western, why don’t I fix their paint scheme while I’m at it. Jim thought that an […]
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I had little interest in trains until I went to college and decided to take Amtrak home for a change. My eight hour trek on the Vermonter lead me to instantly love passenger rail as a means of travel. It was relaxing, very comfortable, and provided me with a power outlet so I could work […]
Editors Note: Tour 904 was made up of Scouts from El Paso, Midland, Abilene, and East Texas. The train carried 576 passengers with two baggage cars, one baggage dormitory car, and eleven coaches supplied by the Texas & Pacific Railroad. It arrived at Port Kennedy, Pa., adjacent to Valley Forge State Park, on Thursday, July […]
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Daily trains in and out of Jacksonville Terminal, 1946. Reprinted from June 1978 Trains magazine. Jacksonville Terminal DOWNLOAD […]
Will the U.S. rails-with-trails movement continue gaining momentum? Or will rail safety and congestion issues stop it in its tracks? In the September 2005 issue, Trains Magazine looked at the issues surrounding locations where recreational activities and active rail lines coexist in a shared space. Want to sample some of these trails yourself? Below is […]
At 17 feet, 5 inches, the caboose cleared all bridges and power lines on its 20-mile road trip. Steve Hendrix Preserving a 25-ton caboose in my backyard wasn’t something that I had always planned on. Sure, I liked trains as a kid and even have a small model railroad layout. But an HO-scale train circling […]
A westbound Capitol Corridor train, led by Amtrak F59PHI No. 464, makes a fine sight as it curves along the shore of San Pablo Bay in Pinole, Calif. Read on to learn about more picturesque train-watching locations between Oakland and Sacramento. Elrond Lawrence So you’re traveling to San Francisco, and have just a few days […]
Baltimore & Ohio constructed this replica of the 0-4-0 Tom Thumb, its first steam locomotive. The original Tom Thumb was built in New York by inventor Peter Cooper, and made a successful first trip on August 25, 1830, when it pushed an open car hauling 18 passengers from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills. Early four-coupled locomotives […]
A groundsman watches while an overhead crane lowers another truck trailer onto a flatcar at BNSF’s Willow Springs intermodal facility. Matt Van Hattem You can feel the heat rising from the asphalt beneath you on this humid summer evening. But your attention is directed elsewhere, at two men in reflectorized vests who-without saying a single […]
Even before he joined Amtrak as a locomotive engineer in 1986, Doug Riddell had been operating the corporation’s passenger trains under contract as a Seaboard Coast Line engineer, and had been photographing their colorful locomotives and consists in and around his native Virginia since Amtrak’s inception in 1971. Here we present some of his favorite […]
