I can. You can. We can. Chessie System reminded its employees to remain safe on the job with this sign at Barr Yard near Chicago. Jim Hediger photo […]
Safety comes in cans
Quintessential New England
Montpelier & Wells River 2-8-0 No. 20, a former Boston & Maine engine, leads train 1 with a milk car behind the tender. A combine brings up the rear of the mixed train. The M&WR, which linked its namesake Vermont communities with a 44-mile route, operated six locomotives and one passenger car in 1944. William […]
Pueblo pause
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s Texas Zephyr, with Colorado & Southern-lettered E5 No. 9955 on the point, pauses at Pueblo on Jan. 23, 1966. The Burlington acquired control of the C&S in 1908, gaining a route from Denver to the Gulf of Mexico at Galveston, Texas, and a route from Denver north into Wyoming. Steve Patterson photo […]
American Steel Foundries test train
It might be a warm summer morning in the early 1950s on the Illinois Central near Clinton, Ill.; or maybe a cold January day along the Pere Marquette outside of Grand Rapids, Mich. There’s the sound of a fast-running steam locomotive in the distance … the railroad’s in a hurry with something today. Shortly an […]
Raceland Junction
In a March 1942 scene at Raceland Junction, La., on Southern Pacific’s Texas & New Orleans subsidiary, 4-6-2 No. 612 approaches with a westbound troop extra as First 242 waits in the clear. Harold K. Vollrath photo […]
Twilight of the dome cars
Following the delivery of dome cars constructed for the Union Pacific and Wabash for the City of St. Louis in 1958, U.S. intercity passenger rail service entered into what turned out to be a terminal illness; thereafter, no more new dome cars were ordered. However, a different factor in the U.S. railroad industry — mergers […]
Proud passenger power
Three Southern Railway E8s curve through Atlanta with the New Orleans cars of the Southern Crescent, running in two sections this August 1977 day. Southern began painting its passenger steam power green with gold trim in the 1920s. Its early passenger diesels wore an ornate green-white-gold livery, simplified in the 1940s to match the lines of […]
Nickel Plate diesels
The Nickel Plate Road’s road-switcher scheme of black with three yellow stripes, plus yellow safety stripes on the ends, was simple but eye catching. Here, GP9s 510, 486, and 454 roll through Bellevue, Ohio, in summer 1959. The small “NYC&StL” on the short hood alludes to the road’s formal name: New York, Chicago & St. […]
Mountain meet — Pennsy
Pennsylvania Railroad GP9s on westbound piggyback train TT1 pass J1 class 2-10-4 No. 6166, which has stopped on the main line near Johnstown, Pa., to take water from an overhead spout, in September 1956. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Mountain meet
Westbound and eastbound Western Star streamliners meet along Whitefish Lake near Whitefish, Mont., in the 1950s. Great Northern photo […]
MoPac Northerns
Two 4-8-4s, Baldwin products of 1943, lead a westbound freight with a long string of open hoppers through Sandy Hook, Mo., about 19 miles west of Jefferson City on Missouri Pacific’s River Line. The railroad had 15 such locomotives, Nos. 2201–2215, and 25 more home-built examples, Nos. 2101–2125. C. T. Wood photo […]
McCloud might
A McCloud River Railroad freight rolls thought Bartle, Calif., in July 1983. Lead unit No. 39 is the road’s sole SD38-2 while trailing unit 38 is the highest numbered of three SD38s. The logging and lumber road operated Baldwin diesels into the late 1960s. Jim Shaw photo […]
