Electric railroads served a variety of purposes in North America: carrying commuters, industrial switching, and mainline freight and passenger service. From coal-hauling, six-axle, red-white-and-blue motors in British Columbia to plain green electric m.u. cars in New Jersey, there can be broad interest in electric railroads. Noted railfan Matthew Herson has lended his photographic collection […]
Gulf Mobile and Ohio remembered: The “modern merger movement” is often said to have begun in 1957 when Louisville & Nashville absorbed the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, in which the L&N had a three-quarters ownership. Some would argue that three similar 1947 mergers — Denver & Salt Lake into Denver & Rio Grande Western; […]
Consolidation 111 moves away from the coal dock at the Long Island Rail Road’s Morris Park engine terminal near Jamaica in the early 1940s. Also in the scene are (from left) an engine dating from before the Pennsylvania Railroad gained control of the LIRR in 1900, a PRR-design LIRR G5s 4-6-0, and a PRR K2s […]
A single MP54 multiple-unit car pauses at Odenton, Md., while working train 404, an early-morning Washington–Baltimore local on the Pennsylvania Railroad main line today known as the Northeast Corridor. H. N. Proctor photo […]
Three connecting short lines in southwest Georgia — the Georgia Northern; Albany & Northern; and Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla — were known as the “Pidcock Kingdom” owing to their onetime control by C. W. Pidcock. By 1968, when GN SW8 No. 13 ambled north with a freight on the GAS&C, they were all under […]
Framed by the pilot of 2-8-2 1457 stopped in a side track with a northbound local freight, 4-8-2 2508 hammers south through Gillman, Ill., on the Illinois Central’s main line with a through freight in September 1954. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Great Northern’s Red River departs Minneapolis on the last leg of its daily morning Grand Forks, N.D.–St. Paul run in April 1951. Bob Borcherding photo […]
Pacific 153 leads the Clinchfield Railroad’s daily passenger train from Spartanburg, S.C., to Elkhorn City, Ky., across the landmark Copper Creek Viaduct near Speers Ferry, Va., on May 28, 1952. The lower trestle carries Southern Railway’s Bristol–Appalachia, Va., line over the creek. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Nine Milwaukee Road steam locomotives move east out of Marion, Iowa, on April 5, 1954, en route to an appointment with the scrappers. A 4-8-4 hauls the grim assemblage, but dieselization is around the corner. Robert Laker photo […]
Chicago & North Western E8 5024A is just hitting the Milwaukee Road diamond on the south side of Racine, Wis., and is about to cross 17th Street. It’s accelerating toward Kenosha, Waukegan, Evanston, and the Windy City in the mid-1950s with what is probably train 160, one of two trains from Milwaukee carrying the simple […]
Baltimore & Ohio’s first P-7 Pacific, No. 5300 (originally named President Washington) is about to enter Howard Street Tunnel as it departs Mount Royal Station in Baltimore with train 21, the Washingtonian, in 1952. The 4-6-2 would soon be retired to the B&O’s museum in Baltimore, where it resides today. James P. Gallagher photo […]
EMD and GE diesels lead a Burlington Northern unit coal train past the Western Avenue commuter-train station and Union Avenue Tower, circa 1980. The train is bound for Joliet, Ill., via Illinois Central Gulf’s ex-GM&O line. Paul D. Schneider photo […]
