The biggest 4-6-2 Pacific came from a surprisingly small railroad. Any history of the American steam locomotive must save some superlatives for the 4-6-2 Pacific. The wheel arrangement allowed a wide variety of design and performance, such that approximately 6,000 were manufactured in the first half of the 20th century, all in the […]
Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee equipment set it apart from other electric interurban lines. Please enjoy this photo gallery selected from files in Kalmbach Media‘s David P. Morgan Library. Each month since October 2019, Classic Trains editors have selected one Fallen Flag to honor. A Fallen Flag is a railroad whose name and heritage have succumbed […]
Ann Arbor Railroad freight TF-1, led by Alco FA diesels in the blue-white-gray of AA parent Wabash, crosses one of the Grand Trunk Western diamonds at Durand, Mich., in the late 1940s or early ’50s. Rail Photo Service photo […]
An A-B-A set of Union Pacific F3 diesels leads a westbound freight along the Snake River 4 miles west of Glenns Ferry, Idaho, in the late 1940s or early ’50s. Henry R. Griffiths Jr. photo […]
A few weeks ago, I made an embarrassing blunder in the pages of Classic Trains. In a brief, bylined description of the Budd Rail Diesel Car, or RDC, I had casually and quite spectacularly goofed by describing its diesel engines as “rooftop.” Yes, rooftop. What was I thinking? I knew its V-6 diesel […]
A Southern Pacific 4-8-8-2 leads a long string of troop sleepers on snowy Donner Pass in the mid-1940s. Pullman-Standard built 2,400 of the boxcar-like sleepers between October 1943 and May 1946. Classic Trains coll. […]
Passengers fill the rear platform of the observation car on Rio Grande’s Scenic Limited at Denver Union Station in about 1928. Those folks have the best seats in the house for the climb up the Front Range. George Beam photo […]
Several boxcars await loading at three classic wooden elevators along the Santa Fe at Dumas, Texas, in late summer 1936. In spite of the Dust Bowl, there’s still wheat to be loaded. Arthur Rothstein, Library of Congress photo […]
A Santa Fe 4-8-4 powers a long string of new Santa Fe Refrigerator Department reefers near Winslow, Ariz., in the mid-1940s. Santa Fe photo […]
Santa Fe Hi-Level step-down coach A passenger ascends the central stairway into the upper level of one of the Santa Fe’s 1956 double-deck Hi-Level coaches. The low window beyond the man standing shows that this is one of the “step-down” cars with an end stairway for access to standard-height cars. Santa Fe photo […]
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie 2-8-4 No. 9401 leads a southbound freight through the station at Beaver, Pa., in June 1948. The seven P&LE Berkshires, delivered in May and June 1948, were Alco’s last steam locomotives. Richard J. Cook photo […]
F. C. Jones works the model board inside brand-new Clara Street tower, part of the project that produced New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal in 1954. James G. La Vake photo […]
