In 1940, the Chesapeake & Ohio needed new locomotives to meet a burgeoning demand for transportation. Its biggest engines were a fleet of single expansion 2-8-8-2s, purchased in the mid-1920s to haul coal on its line across the Alleghenies, where tunnel clearances prevented the use of anything larger. In the 1930s, C&O embarked on rebuilding […]
DURANGO, Colo. — Rio Grande Southern 4-6-0 No. 20 recently traveled from its home at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The trip, aboard a semitruck, took the locomotive over Colorado’s 10,222-foot-high Lizard Head Pass, where it once operated. No. 20 last crossed this pass in the […]
Editor’s note: The January 2026 issue of Trains Magazine includes author Greg Richardson’s article on the development of positive train control, “The road to PTC,” viewed primarily through the lens of his time in Union Pacific’s PTC program. Space limitations precluded inclusion of his look at development of PTC for Big Boy No. 4014; we […]
SILVIS, Ill. — More than 70 years ago, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific worked from a 45-stall roundhouse located on its 90-acre facility in western Illinois. That building has long since been demolished. Now, Railroading Heritage of Midwest America has broken ground to install a 135-foot turntable and build a six-stall roundhouse on the […]
In September 1955, workers at the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Renovo (Pa.) engine terminal prepare L1s 2-8-2 No. 8426 for service as a stationary steam supply at the road’s giant Sunnyside Yard in New York City. The Mike has been converted to oil-firing for this duty, most likely its last assignment. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
A scant three years after Alco introduced the Mallet to America (with the delivery of B&O’s sole 0-6-6-0 in 1904), the Erie took delivery of three camelback 0-8-8-0 Mallets – the first eight-coupled Mallets, also built by Alco – and put them to work as helpers on Gulf Summit in New York state. In 1909, […]
New York Central class J-1e 4-6-4 No. 5344 received sheet-metal shrouding in 1934, making it the first streamlined steam locomotive in America. Carl F. Kantola of NYC’s equipment engineering department created the design. The Hudson was named Commodore Vanderbilt after the NYC’s famous early leader, but initially displayed no road number. Glenn Grabill photo […]
Laura (Schlabach) Jacobson, co-founder of the Jerry and Laura Jacobson Foundation, which established the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum in Sugarcreek, Ohio, died on Nov. 18, 2025, the museum announced in a statement today. Jacobson remained on the museum’s board of directors until her death. She was active in the organization’s leadership, helping ensure a […]
In 1928, the Northern Pacific went shopping for a locomotive that could eliminate doubleheading on the eastern end of its Yellowstone Division between Mandan, N.Dak., and Glendive, Mont. NP’s line through the Badlands had a series of long grades in both directions that made helpers impracticable and had long been one of the railroad’s operational […]
The concrete west portal of Erie’s Otisville (N.Y.) tunnel — from which a Berkshire-powered freight emerges — is fairly simple, but with pilasters and the inscription “19–OTISVILLE–08” in embossed lettering overhead. Note the early installation of welded rail on the eastward track. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
PRR T1 4-4-4-4 No. 5507 clatters through 21st Street interlocking in Chicago with the Broadway Limited for New York. A T1 on the Broadway is relatively rare, as dieselization of PRR’s top trains came soon after the giant duplexes arrived. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
WASILLA, Alaska — After more than 500,000 volunteer working hours, the 557 Restoration Co. successfully fired the last Alaska Railroad steam locomotive on Nov. 8, 2025. The rebuild is now 95% complete, “ … with all the expensive and labor intensive stuff behind us,” says Patrick Durand, 557 Restoration Co. president. The locomotive was pulled […]
