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 […]
NOUPT’s Clara Street tower

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 […]
An employee uses a car mover to shift a Milwaukee Road boxcar on a side track. Car movers have hinged spurs that bite into the rail. Pushing down on the handle exerts upward pressure on the wheel to start the car in motion. Advance Car Mover Co. photo […]
My first railroad book has stuck with me ever since my parents gave it to me when I was 9. Lucius Beebe’s “Hear the Train Blow” was a massive scrapbook of American railroad history, full of the author’s outrageous prose and uncanny skill at digging up illustration. I still love looking through it 62 years […]
Missouri Pacific 4-6-2 6621 and St. Louis-Southwestern 4-6-0 663 await their next assignments at the Memphis Union Station engine house in October 1950. James G. La Vake photo […]
Three 2-6-0s (rebuilt from U.S. Army 0-6-0s) team up on a Midland Terminal ore train in the Cripple Creek mining district near Bull Hill, Colo., in October 1948. The MT shut down in February 1949. Donald Duke photo […]
Rock Island E7 634 eases to a stop with a late-running Golden State from Los Angeles at Joliet Union Station in 1951. In the background Santa Fe F units wait with the westbound Grand Canyon. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 4907 leads a southbound train at Aberdeen, Md., in about 1949. The six-car consist contains four modernized P70 coaches, a diner, and a parlor car. Robert A. Hadley photo […]
Chesapeake & Ohio 3039, seen at Cotton Hill, W.Va., in 1950, was the last of 40 big class T-1 2-10-4s the road received from Lima in 1930. Their 69-inch drivers set them apart from earlier, slower Texas types. Richard J. Cook photo […]
In a September 1952 view at Cincinnati Union Terminal, passengers board Baltimore & Ohio’s Cincinnatian for Detroit. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Louisville & Nashville class M-1 No. 1988, one of 42 “Big Emma” 2-8-4s Baldwin and Lima built for the road during 1942–49, rests between runs at Corbin, Ky., in May 1952. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Servicemen enjoy a meal on one of Baltimore & Ohio’s elegant colonial-themed dining cars during World War II. B&O photo […]
At Enosville in southwestern Indiana, six-wheel switcher No. 57 of 16-mile coal-hauler Algers, Winslow & Western rests between runs in May 1952. Ed Theisinger photo […]