The last PRR steam locomotive

20140714

On Sept. 3, 1958 – nearly a year after the Pennsylvania Railroad stopped using steam locomotives – PRR 0-6-0 5244 emerges from Union Transportation’s New Egypt enginehouse. UT used leased PRR steam engines from 1945 to 1959. Aaron G. Fryer photo […]

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Gleaming SD9 reminds us of Nickel Plate Road’s big switch

Black-and-yellow Nickel Plate Road diesel locomotive in front of trees

  Just when you think recent progress in railroad preservation can’t get any better — I’m thinking here of everything from Big Boy to Reading & Northern 2102 to Silvis Shops to Michigan Central Station — along comes another milestone that, if not quite a blockbuster, is still remarkable. Especially if you’re interested in diesel […]

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PRR’s new ‘Congressional’

20160721

Brand-new from Budd, cars for the Pennsylvania’s Congressional glisten under the lights at 30th Street Station, Philadelphia, during a March 1952 publicity run to preview the new equipment for the press. Classic Trains coll. […]

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MoPac Mikado

Smoking steam Missouri Pacific locomotives with freight train

Bound for the main line at Gorham, Ill., Missouri Pacific 2-8-2 1498 slogs uphill out of DeSoto, Ill., with coal loads in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]

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Transcontinental Railroad: Building track

men building Transcontinental Railroad

Transcontinental Railroad Workers who built the first Transcontinental Railroad, by hand, in the late 1860s labored through grueling heat, biting winter cold, snow, attacks from Native American tribes, and long, long work days. Learn how they did it with this excerpt from one of Trains’ DVD’s, Journey To Promontory, available from the Kalmbach Hobby Store. […]

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Icing station on the Erie

20160722

At an icing station on the Erie Railroad, crushed ice is dumped into refrigerator cars from a cart on the upper level through a funnel that rides on tracks at the platform edge. Erie Railroad photo […]

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Are slugs locomotives?

slug1

Slugs What are slugs, what do they do You’re at trackside, eyeing an approaching CSX train. The roar of working diesels increases, but it’s oddly distant, given that the engines are so close. The lead unit grinds by, eerily silent but for the humming of its traction motors, followed by two others making all the […]

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