Trainfest show report

Electro-Motive Division F45 and FP45 diesel locomotives Electro-Motive Division GP40X diesel locomotive HO scale locomotivesElectro-Motive Division GP40X diesel locomotive. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; Southern Ry. (high nose); St. Lawrence & Atlantic; and undecorated (high and low nose). Upgraded Rail Power Products shell with see-through fans, Celcon handrails, railroad-specific fuel tanks, and Digital Command Control […]

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Atlas O O gauge EMD SD40 diesel

IF YOU RECALL the 1970s TV comedy Welcome Back Kotter, one of the more eccentric characters, Arnold Horshack, had a unique way of signaling his excitement. He would get nervous and shout something that sounded like “Uho uho, uho uho.” Well, that happens to me when I see an SD40 or SD40-2s. Forget your 21st-century […]

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Distinctive diesels

Four-unit locomotive No. 103 of GM’s Electro-Motive Corporation. Electro-Motive FT Tagged “the diesel that did it” by David P. Morgan, longtime editor of Trains Magazine, in a 1960 feature story, four-unit locomotive No. 103 of General Motors’ Electro-Motive Corporation was outshopped at a Grange, IL, plant in November 1939 (the firm later became GM’s Electro-Motive […]

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BC Rail: Wilderness railfanning

A BC Rail freight rolls along the shore of Seton Lake, south of Lillooet, B.C. Dale Sanders In 1952, British Columbia pinned its future on a frontier railway. But the traffic didn’t follow, leaving the province to look for ways of rescuing its traffic-starved and cash-starved railway. A white knight came in the form of […]

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Chicago’s hot spots

If you want to know railroads, you’ve got to know Chicago. And Trains Magazine takes you there in its July 2003 Special Issue. You’ll see how 500 freight trains a day thread their way through the city, check in at the 30 active interlocking towers, pay homage to the city’s six great passenger stations, and […]

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Hamilton, Ont. (Bayview Jct.)

A CN intermodal hotshot heads east on the Dundas Subdivision at Bayview Junction in Hamilton, Ontario, on July 2, 1989. Howard Ande For a first-hand look at Canada’s major railways, there are few places better than Bayview Junction in Hamilton, Ontario, where two of Canadian National’s busiest lines converge at a wye. Canadian Pacific comes […]

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Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.

TRAIN-WATCHING HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TWIN CITIES HIAWATHA LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT LINE Runs from: Warehouse District/Hennepin Ave. in downtown Minneapolis along Hiawatha Avenue to MSP International Airport and Mall of America in Bloomington, 11.6 miles. Train frequency: Trains run daily, every 7-8 minutes during rush hours, every 10 minutes between 9:00 am and 3:00 pm, every […]

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Metra

Slant-nosed Metra F40PH-2Ms are seen powering Rock Island district trains, approaching Chicago’s LaSalle St. Station on December 15, 1997. Howard Ande Commuter trains have long been a part of Chicago’s railroad scene, appropriately enough for the railroad capital of the world. Illinois Central, the first railroad west of New York and Philadelphia to offer commuter […]

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Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)

MBTA GP40LH-2 1128 pulls into the Newburyport, Mass., layover yard with train 183 on July 30, 2002. James B. Winters The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority serves the city of Boston and outlying areas with 11 different commuter lines and 119 stations covering 402 route miles. MBTA trains operate two Boston stations: North Station and South […]

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Steam locomotive profile: 2-6-0 Mogul

Canadian National kept its fleet of Moguls in service the longest, until 1959. No. 86 was built in 1910 by the Canadian Locomotive Co. as Grand Trunk No. 1006, and renumbered twice, before it was photographed leading a mixed train through Ontario in July 1957. Herbert Harwood, Jr. The 2-6-0 was an outgrowth of the […]

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Steam locomotive profile: 2-8-2 Mikado

Northern Pacific’s last batch of 2-8-2s came from Alco in 1923. One member of the class, No. 1843, blasts through Thompson Falls, Mont., with a 73-car freight train on September 22, 1940. J. W. Maxwell The first true North American 2-8-2s were built by Alco for the Northern Pacific in 1904. (Experimental locomotives with the […]

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Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (AMT)

AMT F59PHI 1325 coasts through the Montreal West, Quebec, station with a train from Blainville bound for Windsor Station in downtown Montreal on November 24, 2000. John Godfrey AMT, an acronym for Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (Metropolitan Transportation Agency), coordinates Montreal’s commuter rail service, a 112-mile system comprised of five lines and 45 stations. The […]

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