Think of the GMD-1 as the Canadian prairie locomotive. With a legacy stretching six decades the EMD GMD-1 (General Motors Diesel of Canada) was a locomotive model that was used exclusively in Canada by the Canadian National and the Northern Alberta Railways. Build at the General Motors Diesel plant in London, Ontario, the 1,200-horsepower diesel […]
Servicemen enjoy a meal on one of Baltimore & Ohio’s elegant colonial-themed dining cars during World War II. B&O photo […]
What was your first byline in Trains? Bob Johnston: “All passengers will make their connections” appeared in “Selected Railroad Reading” in the April 1989 issue. That article really began two years earlier, when an employee on the Chicago TV advertising sales team I managed gave me a notebook prior to a trip I took to […]
Starting its nearly half century of service, EMD GP15-1 locomotives are still going strong on regional short lines around the country as proof that old EMDs can still pull todays manifest traffic. Built by General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division between 1976 and 1982, the four-axle GP15-1 was a way for railroads to purchase new power instead […]
Electro-Motive Division tunnel motor diesels Electro-Motive Division tunnel motor diesels solved a tricky problem. Locomotives operate in all climates, from scorching desert heat to frigid Canadian winters. An ample supply of fresh air is always required for cooling and combustion purposes but when trains operate through long tunnels or snowsheds at slow speeds, the ability […]
Infrared photography Photography is a wonderful way to document your life. Whether you take pictures of your family, animals, landscapes, or trains, after a while the “seeing it like it is” or untouched photo can leave something to be desired. It may even eventually make you put the camera down. I was in such a […]
Similar to the EMD RS1325, the Alco S5 locomotive is one of those locomotive designs that seemed like a good idea at the time, was engineered well, ran well, but almost no one wanted to purchase. The manufacturer needed to update its aging lineup of 660-hp S3 and 1,000-hp S4 end cab switchers […]
The best-selling first-generation Electro-Motive diesel locomotives came from the switcher, cab unit, and road switcher product lines. The company that would dominate locomotive construction from the 1940s through the 1970s had humble beginnings, contracting the construction of motor cars at other companies’ plants in the 1920s. The Electro-Motive Corp. was purchased by General Motors in […]
Missouri-Kansas-Texas logo underwent subtle changes throughout the railroad’s history. But its origin is more interesting than these iterative changes. In his history of the Katy, J. Parker Lamb mentions the different incarnations of Katy’s corporate herald over the years, but where did the road’s uniquely shaped emblem come from? According to Freeman Hubbard in his […]
The biggest steam switcher stood head and shoulders above the rest. In the steam era, switch engines came in basically three sizes: 0-4-0, 0-6-0, and 0-8-0. They ranged from diminutive shop switchers — typically 0-4-0s, pretty much a pre-1900 machine — to huge switchers such as Indiana Harbor Belt’s three U-4a class 0-8-0s […]
Northern Pacific’s Banana Nut Bread immediately caught my eye as a recipe worth re-creating. The railroad wanted to waste as little as possible, so using overripe bananas in a banana bread was a sensible idea. It also reused milk that had gone sour (though you don’t need to keep old milk in your fridge—see tips […]
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad is perhaps best summed up by two words: deterioration and reconstruction. Seldom has a railroad managed to survive the number of disasters, both natural and contrived, that befell the Katy. Its 1865 charter was for the Union Pacific Southern Branch. Although it connected with the Kansas Pacific (merged by UP in 1880) […]
