Norfolk Southern Corp. was created as a new holding company to acquire Norfolk & Western Railway and Southern Railway, effected June 1, 1982. Full merger went into effect on Dec. 31, 1990, as the N&W became a subsidiary of the Southern, and the latter changed its name to Norfolk Southern Railway. Here, from both the […]
Pan Am Railways In March of 2006, Guilford Transportation Industries’ rail properties were rebranded under the name Pan Am Railways, sharing the trade name of the well-known airline, which GTI had purchased out of bankruptcy in 1998 and continues to operate under the Pan Am brand. Guilford Rail System Guilford Transportation Industries dates from 1977, […]
The Union Pacific Railroad is the last major U.S. rail system whose name has never changed, dating from its charter in 1862 to build the nation’s first transcontinental, westward from Omaha, Neb.. Also notable for their longevity are the railroad’s shield-shaped emblem from 1886, and yellow color scheme on its passenger cars and locomotives from […]
A westbound BNSF freight train rounds the Tehachapi Loop in Southern California. Howard Ande The product of the Sept. 22, 1995 merger of the parent companies of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway and the Burlington Northern Railroad, BNSF is one of the west’s two giant railroad systems. Its 32,000-mile network (24,000 owned route […]
A Norfolk Southern coal train curves through Falls Mills, W.Va. John P. Locke, III Norfolk Southern is the product of the June 1, 1982 merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway. The two railways operated as separate subsidiaries under parent company Norfolk Southern Corporation until December 31, 1990, when Norfolk & Western became a […]
A westbound Canadian Pacific freight curves along the Mississippi River at Maple Springs, Minn. Matt Van Hattem The Canadian Pacific Railway operates a network of 13,600 route miles that stretches across Canada from Montreal to Vancouver, with lines reaching south into Chicago and the major population centers of the northeast U.S. In between its lines […]
A northbound Kansas City Southern coal train rolls through Neosha, Ark. George R. Cockle Kansas City Southern operates 3,100 track miles in 10 central and southeastern states. The railroad stretches from its namesake city south through its hub of Shreveport, La., to Port Arthur, Texas, which it reached in 1897, and from New Orleans through […]
Wearing Union Pacific’s revived wing shield emblem, a trio of SD70M locomotives leads a trailer train eastbound through Creston, Ill. Howard Ande The largest U.S. railroad, Union Pacific Railroad operates a 32,000-mile network (27,000 route miles owned, 5,000 route miles on trackage rights) serving 23 states. The railroad links every major city in the west […]
It was December 2005 when I wrote the rough draft of my story on using GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) to help when chasing trains in unfamiliar lands. Between that time and the time the article appeared in the July 2006 issue of Trains, I kept an eye on the advertisements from national electronic retailers (Best […]
In his article “Nine Decades in the Service of Steam” in the Summer 2004 issue of Classic Trains magazine, James A. Brown looks at the final, glorious years of Stratford Big Shop, Canadian National’s last steam-locomotive overhaul facility. Below is a PDF that includes the layout of the Canadian National Stratford Shop. Please note that […]
Norfolk & Western Y6-Class 2-8-8-2 No. 2136 thunders east near Delbarton, W.Va., with a coal train on March 25, 1959. Bruce R. Meyer Bruce Meyer has been on a search for steam since he started taking railroad photographs in the early 1950s. Meyer made a dramatic record of steam’s final years in the Midwest and […]
Capturing the disappearing aspects of American life is photographer David Plowden’s stock in trade. He proudly relates that his first published photograph appeared in TRAINS magazine a year before he graduated from Yale with an economics degree. After photographing locomotives and other aspects of railroading in the early 1960s, he turned his camera to depots, […]
