One of Seaboard Air Line’s high-speed, twin smokestack 2-6-6-4s – the largest steam engines on the railroad’s roster – charges out of Raleigh, N.C., with a freight in 1941. Homer R. Hill During the latter half of the 1920s the single expansion articulated locomotive had evolved into a very capable machine. It could lug a […]
Mammoth C&O Allegheny No. 1603 summons its 110,200 pounds of tractive force to haul a heavy coal train through West Virginia. Chesapeake & Ohio 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 […]
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. Southern Railway […]
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 […]
Better than most railroads, perhaps, the Union Pacific understood fast freight service. With an expansive network of lines spread across the western states, the railroad had to maintain fast schedules in order to remain competitive. Mindful of this, UP purchased the first heavy fast freight locomotives: unique three-cylinder 4-12-2s, built by Alco from 1926 to […]
The proving ground for Union Pacific’s locomotives was a 75-mile portion of its busy main line between Ogden, Utah, and Evanston, Wyo. Eastward trains faced a climb through the Wasatch Mountains on grades of 1 percent or better. It was an expensive line to operate, particularly given UP’s practice of running big trains that typically […]
Interurbans Interurbans were electric railroads running between cities, often of lighter construction than “steam” railroads. They had their own rights of way through the countryside but usually ran in streets when in town, often sharing tracks with city streetcars. Trains consisted of one (sometimes more) cars. Passengers were their primary focus, though some lines came […]
One enduring symbol of railroading’s past is the red-and-white diamond herald of the Railway Express Agency. Today one finds reminders of REA only at museums or old depots, but it once was a major element of the American scene – the FedEx of its day. Formation of the REA Express service is the prompt and […]
Norfolk & Western’s Jawn Henry (named for the legendary “steel-drivin’ man”) was the last of a handful of U.S. experimental steam turbine locomotives, which appeared as a response to the diesel-electric locomotive’s overall superiority to conventional steam power. Turbines first came into use for steamships and power plants around 1900, and their advantages over reciprocating […]
BNSF Railway Company Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. created on September 22, 1995, when BN bought AT&SF’s corporate Parent. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway merged into Burlington Northern Railroad on December 31, 1996, and BN renamed Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway. Name shortened to BNSF Railway Company in 2005. Atchison, Topeka & Santa […]
Canadian National Canadian National Railways was incorporated June 6, 1919, to operate several carriers that had come under governmental control owing to financial problems: Intercolonial (1913); National Transcontinental (1915); Canadian Northern (1918); Grand Trunk Pacific (1920); and Grand Trunk (1920). The Grand Trunk name survived on the U.S. portion of the Montreal-Portland (Maine) line until […]
Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian Pacific, like its American counterpart Union Pacific, has the “right” name, one that endures, though CP is younger, having been incorporated in 1881 to build from near North Bay, Ontario, to the Pacific Coast at what is now Vancouver, B.C. Post-World War II subsidiaries that maintained some identity included Esquimalt & […]
