Two big engines that couldn’t

Smoking steam Missouri Pacific locomotives with freight train

After a 2-10-2 and 4-8-4 stalled on MoPac’s Kirkwood Hill, an 0-8-0 and caboose couple up to render assistance. Joe Collias Heading west from St. Louis, Missouri Pacific trains faced the 6-mile-long, 1-percent grade known as Kirkwood Hill. Normal train length was 100 cars, powered by one of the rebuilt 2101-class 4-8-4s and led by […]

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Ewbank gas-electric locomotive

TRN-AT0212_06

Gene Mendonca’s painting of Ewbank Electric Transmission Co.’s train. Gene Mendonca Q Can you tell me anything about the Ewbank Electric Transmission Co. that is the subject of a picture I painted from a very old newspaper clipping? – Gene Mendonca, Folsom, Calif. A H.B. Ewbank Jr. built No. 333, a 75-foot-long gas-electric locomotive with […]

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‘Abandoned’ during switching at Jacksonville

JacksonvilleUnStanight

Splitting and combining trains was a well-practiced ritual at Jacksonville Union Station. David W. Salter From 1954 until I was 11 years old in 1965, we traveled, by Pullman, from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to North Miami, using either the Seaboard Air Line or Atlantic Coast Line south of Richmond, Va. Until the Florida […]

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Last unpatched C&NW locomotives to be repainted UP NEWSWIRE

CNW8701RochelleILwestboundIG2G2ChrisGussphoto

C&NW Nos. 8701 and 8646 roll intermodal traffic westbound through Rochelle, Ill. earlier this year. Chris Guss NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Union Pacific is on a quest to create a unified fleet of locomotives all wearing its corporate paint scheme, and the two most visual casualties will be Chicago & North Western C44-9Ws Nos. […]

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Genesis of a debt to be repaid

NHPAsSouthStation1961

Before starting their seven-stop trek to Providence, the two Alco PAs on New Haven train 531 prepare to follow the FL9s on the Merchants Limited (left in photo) out of South Station, Boston, in 1961. Chris Burger In the early 1960s, I was a student at Providence College in Rhode Island’s capital city, commuting on […]

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Yampa Valley meet

Rio Grande Railroad Yampa Valley trains

December 31, 1966, on the Rio Grande finds the east- and westbound Yampa Valley trains meeting at Radium, Colo. Seen from the cab of Alco PA 6013 on westbound train 9, eastbound train 10 is headed by a PA and an F7B. Steve Patterson photo […]

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