Big Boy in Texas and Mid-South photo gallery, August 2021

Big Boy locomotive moving over a rural grade crossing.

  Trains contributors Steve Smedley and Sol Tucker present some of their choice images from chasing Union Pacific Big Boy in Texas and the Mid-South. Big Boy’s 2021 trip from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to New Orleans and back is the locomotive’s first excursion since 2019. For more information, see the Union Pacific steam schedule online. Also, […]

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How to visit Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum

steam passenger train in Tennessee

Visiting Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum If you took a major Class I railroad in the early 1950s, shrunk it, and set it aside to show people today what a section of big-time, steam-era railroading was all about, you’d create Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Set on a portion of Southern Railway’s original main line into Chattanooga, […]

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Doug Harrop’s Utah

Sun highlight diesel locomotive exhaust of train in curve

Doug Harrop retired from Union Pacific in 2003. He hired out with the Southern Pacific in 1967 in Arizona. He left the management ranks a decade later to return to Utah to enter engine service out of Ogden. Known for his photographic coverage of Utah, Harrop’s enthusiasm for railroads took him across the continent. He […]

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Kansas City, Mo., is one of America’s top rail hubs

Locomotive hauls a train on yard tracks under a bridge backlit by low angle sunlight.

  Who realizes that Kansas City is one of the U.S.’s main rail hubs, the second busiest and second by annual tonnage? Chicago wins by a small margin. While declines in coal shipments have likely ended Kansas City’s three-decade dominance in rail tonnage, the difference between the two cities remains about 3%, says the Association […]

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Cars of the 1938 Century

Streamlined steam locomotive leading a streamline passenger train on a gentle curve.

From its launch in 1902, New York Central’s 20th Century Limited was arguably the most prestigious train in America. With its all-first-class passenger accommodations, the Century was the way to travel between New York and Chicago. By 1938 the train’s reputation was well established when it was completely re-equipped with new streamlined Alco locomotives and […]

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Streamlined steam locomotives

A steel gray streamlined steam locomotive in a rail yard.

  A new aesthetic — “streamlining” — took hold in the 1930s. Objects from telephones to ocean liners were designed to be unified in appearance instead of collections of parts. Curves replaced square corners, and horizontal lines replaced verticals. Streamlining burst upon the railroad scene with the 1934 introduction of two sleek internal-combustion-powered passenger trains. Steam […]

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Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum photo gallery

Steam locomotive exhausts steam near the ground

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, one of the sacred places of American railway preservation, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary with special operations of legendary Southern Railway steam locomotives Nos. 4501 and 630 and night photo sessions. Sol S. Tucker photographed the activities for Trains the weekend of Oct. 23 and 24, 2021. Nos. 4501 and 630 […]

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Trains Magazine – Trains News Wire, Railroad News, Railroad Industry News, Web Cams, and Forms

FULL SCREEN Kevin Burkholder Commemorative GP40-2W No. 311 passes the old depot in Wallingford, Vt., in fresh snowfall on Feb. 13, 2014. FULL SCREEN Scott A. Hartley Ogdensburg Bridge & Port Authority SW900 No. 14 is seen at the Norfolk, N.Y., enginehouse on Oct. 9, 2013. FULL SCREEN Kevin Burkholder Vermont Railway GP38-2 No. 202 […]

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Trains Magazine – Trains News Wire, Railroad News, Railroad Industry News, Web Cams, and Forms

FULL SCREEN Brian Schmidt Eastbound containers on Q016 pass F Tower in Fostoria on a cloudless summer morning in July 2011. FULL SCREEN Brian Schmidt Eastbound containers pass the Wood Street diamond with CSX on train No. 234 in July 2011. FULL SCREEN Brian Schmidt CSX AC44CW No. 262 leads freight west through Fostoria in […]

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