Side-door cabooses were sometimes used for delivering less-than-carload shipments to branchline stations. This is at Chicopee, Mo., on the Frisco. Wayne Leeman photo […]
Side-door versatility
Roosevelt Road revisited
Baltimore & Ohio train 6, the eastbound Capitol Limited, picks up orders as it departs Chicago’s Grand Central Station bound for Washington, D.C., in July 1968. Philip A. Weibler photo […]
Moving ‘Silver Splendor’ to Conway Scenic
I have a personal connection with a Budd-built Vista-Dome. In November 2018, my old friend and President and co-owner of New Hampshire’s Conway Scenic Railroad, Dave Swirk, called me, “Would you like to join me on a big adventure?” Before I realized what I was getting into, I said “Yes.” The railroad had just […]
Rocky Mount E units
As three Atlantic Coast Line E units depart Rock Mount, N.C., with the head-end-heavy Havana Special, another E unit waits to back into the station to pick up train 49, the Special’s connection to Wilmington. William D. Middleton photo […]
Pullmans for Penn Station
Heavyweight Pullman cars trail Pennsylvania Railroad train 72, the eastbound Juniata, at Marysville, Pa., in 1952. The train, which is about to cross the famed Rockville Bridge over the Susquehanna River, is en route from Detroit to New York City. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Passenger power
Passenger cab units, like this twin-engine New York Central EMD E8, rode on six-wheel trucks with the center axle unpowered, denoted as A1A-A1A. EMD built 421 E8A units and 39 E8B units making it the second most popular model in the line behind the E7. Pictured is a late production E8, with stamped-metal grill along […]
New England Alcos
Three Alco RS3s lead a Boston & Maine freight near White River Junction, Vt. The railroad had 26 such units, Nos. 1505-1519 and 1535-1545, numbered around a series of similar RS2s. Jerry A. Pinkepank photo […]
Nancy Hanks II
The Central of Georgia’s Atlanta to Savanna Nancy Hanks II approaches the station at Macon, Ga., on its exhibition run behind brand-new E7 No. 808 on July 9, 1947. Named for a race horse, the original Nancy Hanks train ran in the 1890s. The railroad, in bankruptcy from 1932 to 1948, became a Southern Railway subsidiary in 1963. Walter […]
The Michigan Air Line
Typical of their brethren everywhere, even a century after the fact many railroaders still called certain southern Michigan branchline segments “the Air Line.” But unlike many such monikers elsewhere for short-cuts or straight-track segments, this one had an ancestor with that actual name. The Michigan Air Line Railroad was planned to link the Canada […]
Mount Shasta memory
Southern Pacific AC-7 class 4-8-8-2 No. 4165 pulls an extra freight near Mount Shasta, Calif., in January 1944. Baldwin built 195 such “cab-forward” locomotives for the railroad, classes AC-4 through AC-12, except for AC-9. Classic Trains collection […]
Local lesson
Milwaukee Road’s Viroqua Patrol, with an Alco RSD5 in charge, crosses the Burlington Northern’s ex-Chicago, Burlington & Quincy main line at Grande Crossing in La Crosse, Wis., on Oct. 9, 1971. “Patrol” was the Milwaukee’s name for a local freight and Viroqua was a town on a branch located southeast of La Crosse. J. W. […]
In Grande style
The Denver & Rio Grande Western, symbol of so much of Colorado railroading, had nowhere else to go for traffic. After laying tracks in search of gold and silver, it was coal that made the road. A westbound freight appropriately heads up Coal Creek Canyon west of Denver on the Front Range in 1972. Ron […]
