Of the many first-rate photographers who became fascinated by postwar railroading, one of the best was James La Vake. An airline pilot by profession, he also had some experience as a photographer, and it showed: his photos in Trains magazine in the late 1940s and early ’50s are among the best featuring diesel-powered streamliners. I’ve […]
Grand Trunk Western steam provided a last look for many Midwest railfans. Despite having a large population with sizeable cities, Michigan has hovered just above the nation’s busy paths of commerce. Except for Detroit, the state tends to be out of sight, out of mind — no offense to Grand Rapids, the state’s […]
Prior to the time of the streamliners, North American passenger trains were not particularly colorful. Most sleeping cars were Pullman green, although there were exceptions; both the Pennsylvania and Canadian Pacific utilized shades of red on their passenger equipment, for example. With the arrival of streamlined lightweight equipment as of the late 1930s, […]
EMDs SD90MAC Convertibles were a product of the mid-1990s, when EMD and GE were in a horsepower race to produce the first 6,000 hp AC locomotives. EMD would offer the SD90MAC model which would feature a four-stroke 265H engine, with Union Pacific being the first customer to commit to the model long before the first […]
Most Alco fans head for the Northeast’s safe haven of Alco-operating short line railroads. But viewing Virginia’s only Alco short line requires a visit to Shenandoah Valley Railroad (SVRR). The SVRR is a 20.1-mile railroad between Staunton, Va., and Pleasant Valley, Va., along the intersection of Interstates 81 and 64 in the Commonwealth’s Shenandoah Valley. […]
It was my bittersweet duty last week to write an obituary for illustrator Bob Wegner, one of the all-time greats from the heyday of Kalmbach Publishing Co. He was a versatile illustrator and (best of all from my perspective) a railroad mapmaker extraordinaire. Bob put in more than 40 years at KPC, turning out hundreds […]
Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Smoking is a habit that’s never appealed to me. No smoking for me. During my time as conductor for the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, many of my engineers smoked. There was no choice for me but to grin and bear it. I never got used to it, but as long […]
In Washington State’s Cascade Tunnel, it’s time to reach for the air packs if the ventilation fails. It happened to me on one of the only times I recall running with mid-train Distributive Power (DPU’s). It was a call for the Everett to Spokane manifest or as we called it, HEVESPO. The “H” stood for […]
By 1935, it would have been sensible to consider the 4-4-2 Atlantic-type steam locomotive all but obsolete, at least insofar as new construction was concerned. In the U.S., the design could be traced back to the 1880s, and ultimately about 1,900 of the type were built. Its heydays were the years surrounding World War […]
Planning a visit to a heritage rail operation? You can avoid disappointment by researching your journey using readily available tools. While this may seem obvious, the specifics can elude even seasoned travelers. The internet and smartphones have changed travel. A wealth of up-to-the-minute information is available at your fingertips. This makes it much easier to […]
Office cars Prior to Amtrak, railroads had coupled company owned business and office cars to the rear of passenger trains for the convenience of executive and management personnel. The usually spotless and well maintained fleet of comfortably furnished cars also served as sales offices on wheels for the railroad’s industrial development and traffic departments, allowing […]
The decades-long effort to advance the design and technology of steam locomotives constantly circled back to the idea of “make it bigger.” Articulated engines took that notion and doubled it both figuratively and literally. The results were roughly 3,000-built machines of epic proportions with the strength and flexibility to haul either slow drags through mountainous […]
