One moment sooner!

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Rare CPA-24-5 4500 (partially hidden by a signal box) and an F3B lead NYC’s James Whitcomb Riley north at Illinois Central’s 115th Street station; second car is a C&O Newport News–Chicago sleeper. Gordon E. Lloyd What makes a perfect photo? Perhaps first and foremost, “perfect” is an abstraction, perfection being generally defined in the mind […]

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Logging road, take me home!

Stand next to Trains‘ Steve Sweeney with video from Cass Scenic Railroad’s annual railfan weekend in 2014. Steve caught Cass’ Heisler No. 6 hauling a short freight, a triple-headed Shay consist, and the grand parade of steam. See steam railroading at its best, in the West Virginia mountains, only from Trains! […]

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Logging road, take me home!

Stand next to Trains‘ Steve Sweeney with video from Cass Scenic Railroad’s annual railfan weekend in 2014. Steve caught Cass’ Heisler No. 6 hauling a short freight, a triple-headed Shay consist, and the grand parade of steam. See steam railroading at its best, in the West Virginia mountains, only from Trains! […]

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The big engine that couldn’t

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PRR J1 2-10-4 No. 6480 crests the hill in Irvington, heading east from downtown Indianapolis with a freight during the switchmen’s strike at Hawthorne Yard in the winter of 1951-52. Martin E. Biemer The winter of 1951–52 brought a new thrill for us railroad-crazy boys in the Indianapolis neighborhood of Irvington: Freight trains! Irvington, a […]

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Hi-cubes and fruit cans

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NYC RS3 8288 — a “little diesel” to the author as a pre-schooler — heads a westbound way freight along the Hudson River at Peekskill in 1959. Nine years later and 29 miles down the river a hi-cube car ran into trouble. Karl R. Zimmermann Between the 1910s, when the New York Central electrified its […]

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