Seashore Lines Budd Car

20190227

One of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines’ 12 Budd Rail Diesel Cars pauses at Collingswood, N.J., about 3 miles out of Camden on the old West Jersey & Seashore, in September 1964. William J. Coxey photo […]

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Burlington Northern history remembered

Green-and-black diesel locomotives of Burlington Northern history with train of containers along river

  When created, Burlington Northern had a greater extent than any other U. S. railroad: Vancouver, British Columbia, to Pensacola, Fla. If you crossed North America from east to west, you had to cross BN rails or get your feet wet in the Gulf of Mexico or find your way around the north side of […]

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The Rio Grande’s Farmington Branch

Low-angle photo of smoking black steam locomotive with large snow plow

  It was an oddball branch line with a just-as-odd history that is still worth recounting.   The Rio Grande’s Farmington Branch was built in 1905 to connect Carbon Junction, Colo. (just outside of Durango to the southeast), and Farmington, N.M. It was a modest, 47.68-mile standard gauge line (later narrow gauge) that followed the […]

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Piggyback on the Wabash

20190204

Several piggyback cars head northbound on the Wabash at Forrest, Ill., en route to Chicago in March 1960. In a few years, the route would host the railroad’s Roadrunner overnight TOFC train. J. Parker Lamb photo […]

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Maine two-footer special

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Bridgton & Harrison 2-4-4T No. 8 creeps around a rock outcropping at the head of a special train in 1940. The second-to-last Maine two-foot road to operate, the B&H closed the following year. Robert B. Adams photo […]

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Harrisburg NRHS completes interactive signal exhibit

Image on cell phone that matches display on three-position signal

HARRISBURG, Pa. – With a cellphone, tablet or notebook in hand, visitors can activate a Pennsylvania Railroad position-light signal here to replicate any of 19 indications, past or present, used to govern train movements. The Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society on Wednesday (Feb. 19) completed a project, years in the making, that […]

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Hudson on the Hiawatha

20190218

Milwaukee Road streamlined 4-6-4 No. 102 leads a Minneapolis-bound Hiawatha out of Chicago at Western Avenue in March 1949. Retirement is just a year away for the sleek greyhound. Harold Stirton photo […]

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Mike Eagleson was all about steam

Steam steam locomotives with passenger train on curve

The trend toward professional archival preservation of the work of major railroad photographers continues, lately with the news that the huge collection of negatives, slides, and films of the late Mike Eagleson has gone to the Industrial Archives & Library based in Bethlehem, Pa. This is a big “get” for the IAL, buttressing its mission […]

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C&O Allegheny 1624

20190221

Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-6 1624 has cut off from its eastbound coal train to take sand, coal, and water at Thurmond, W.Va., in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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