Pennsylvania Railroad class B6sb 0-6-0 No. 4027 has a small audience as it switches cars in Williamsport, Pa., in 1950. A. C. Kalmbach photo […]
Pennsy 0-6-0 at Williamsport
Section: Photos
C&O steam turbine
Chesapeake & Ohio 500 was one of three class M-1 steam-turbine-electric locomotives built by Baldwin-Westinghouse in 1946–47 for the new Chessie streamliner. But the road de-emphasized its passenger business, the Chessie never ran, and the M-1’s led short lives. Classic Trains coll. […]
Lehigh & New England Alco freight diesels
An A-B-A trio of 1,500 h.p. Alco freight diesels (in later nomenclature, two FA1’s and an FB1) rolls a train on the Lehigh & New England, a 178-mile anthracite hauler and Pennsylvania-New Jersey-New York bridge line that dieselized in 1949. Alco-GE photo […]
Landmark diesel: CNJ 1000
Central Railroad of New Jersey box-cab No. 1000, built by an Alco/General Electric/Ingersoll-Rand consortium, gained the title of “first commercially successful diesel-electric locomotive” when CNJ put it to work on October 22, 1925. After a three-decade career, the unit was retired to the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore. CNJ photo […]
Conrail paint schemes: Gone but not forgotten
The many faces of Conrail Conrail, the amalgamation of many financially struggling Eastern railroads both big and small, was born April 1, 1976. When it began, the system operated thousands of locomotives on about 19,000 route-miles in 15 states and two Canadian provinces. Its mandate: to revitalize rail service in the Northeast and Midwest as […]
MoPac 2-8-4 on the move
Missouri Pacific 2-8-4 No. 1119 rolls a southbound freight over a new highway bridge at Austin, Texas, in 1948. Bruce F. Wilson photo […]
SP “Black Widow” F units
An A-B-B-A quartet of Southern Pacific F units dressed in the distinctive “Black Widow” livery lift an eastbound freight up into the town of Tehachapi, Calif., in 1949. Exhaust from a 4-8-8-2 cab-forward helper rises in the distance. Linn Westcott photo […]
Cincinnati Union Terminal roundhouse
An aerial view from the 1940s shows the roundhouse for Cincinnati Union Terminal, opened in 1933. Marsh Photographic Studios photo […]
Twin Zephyr hoopla
Crowds swarm around Burlington Route 9901 and 9902, the original three-car Twin Zephyr diesel trains, during a publicity event before the pair entered service between Chicago and the Twin Cities in April 1935. CB&Q photo […]
Closing the gap on the Santa Fe
A crane places one of four 100-foot deck girders between piers 1 and 2 of the Santa Fe’s new bridge over the Colorado River at Needles, Calif. The double-track bridge opened in 1944 to replace a single-track span from 1890. Santa Fe photo […]
Icing the reefers at Roseville
Workers load ice blocks into the end bunkers of refrigerator cars at the big ice dock at Roseville, Calif., on the Southern Pacific in 1948. Jim Morley photo […]
New England States at Chicago
A red cap walks past businessmen who’ve just arrived at Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station on New York Central’s New England States streamliner one morning in 1952. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
