To Saigon via Summit

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A Santa Fe RSD15, SD24, and two SD45s curve toward Summit with an eastbound freight on November 14, 1970.  Jay Potter People used to say that railroads held the country together. They were the proverbial ribbons of steel that kept commerce and people moving and made a lot of things possible. Today — as I […]

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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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