A 70-car Rio Grande narrow gauge freight drops down Tanglefoot Curve east of Cumbres, Colo., on June 11, 1960. Power is K-36 2-8-2 No. 486. Robert F. Collins photo […]
Narrow gauge freight
4-6-4 Hudson steam locomotives
While growing up in Cleveland and Buffalo after World War II, a close encounter with a 4-6-4 Hudson-type locomotive was just a train ride away. My first memory was as a four-year-old. My family had taken the New York Central to Chicago, and as we walked forward at La Salle Street Station, I was […]
N&W standard
Rare elsewhere, the 4-8-0 was Norfolk & Western’s top freight engine until 1910, when the first articulateds arrived. Out of an original fleet of 286 Twelve-Wheelers, by 1954, three dozen remained, including 1906-built 475, switching at Potts Valley Junction on the Radford Division. Today this engine hauls tourists, and sometimes freight, at the Strasburg Rail […]
Minuteman
Boston & Maine train 58, the eastbound Minuteman, approaches North Pownal, Vt., in August 1940. Pacific 3658 has milk cars tucked in behind its tender. John P. Ahrens photo […]
Man and machine
At Works Tower in Altoona, Pa., a fresh crew gets ready to take Chicago-bound Pennsylvania Railroad piggyback train TT1 west. Unseen, car inspectors check for loose tie-down bracing on the trailers. GP9 No. 7000 is preserved at the Cape May Seashore Lines in New Jersey. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
High-pressure short line
Alabama, Tennessee & Northern No. 11, a General Electric 45-ton center-cab diesel, switches high-pressure tank cars for a refinery on Blakely Island at Mobile, Ala. The railroad, which otherwise consisted of about 200 miles up the west side of the state, operated a car ferry and docks to reach this trackage. It was merged into […]
Frisco fast freight
Four red-and-white GP40s lead fast freight train 33, the Texas Special, into Valley Park, Mo., on Nov. 25, 1980, four days after merger with Burlington Northern. […]
Lucius Beebe remembered
Lucius Beebe was a major figure in railroad literature and photography for nearly three decades, but contemporary readers might be amazed at just how far his reputation spread beyond railroading. He could have starred in the old TV show, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Beebe was born Dec. 9, 1902, in Wakefield, Mass. His […]
Daily except Sunday
Virginia & Truckee 2-8-0 No. 5 brings the daily-except-Sunday mixed train across the highway crossing at Washoe, Nev., on Aug. 7, 1948. The railroad ended service on its 46-mile route on May 31, 1950. Fred H. Matthews Jr. photo […]
Cumbres Pass
Denver & Rio Grande Western Mikados Nos. 497 and 488 lift an eastbound narrow gauge train up Cumbres Pass in June 1963. Under Rio Grande management such sights would last only five more years. Cornelius W. Hauck photo […]
Classic conveyance
The plain 40-foot, general-purpose boxcar was the standard method of hauling bulk grain through the 1960s. Adding temporary grain doors to the door openings made a boxcar a rolling storage tub. This steel Chicago Great Western-marked car carries a load of corn at Milwaukee in the 1970s. Its replacements, high-capacity covered hopper cars, are already […]
West Virginia coal
Baltimore & Ohio 2-8-8-4 No. 7609 carries a coal train to the summit at Altamont, W.Va., in June 1945. The locomotive is one of 30 EM1-class engines built by Baldwin. H.W. Pontin photo […]
