This full-page ad from roller bearing manufacturer Timken appeared 75 years ago in the May 1950 issue of Trains Magazine. It’s a reminder that roller bearings represented a huge advancement over the earlier friction, or plain, bearing design. Axle-mounted roller bearings are a critical component in modern railroading due to their role in enhancing efficiency, […]
Although replaced in recent years by roller bearings, friction bearings (also called solid bearings or plain bearings) were a railroad standard for many years. Friction bearings were blocks of metal, usually brass, resting atop the axle and lubricated by oil-saturated wool waste enclosed in a hinged-lid journal box. To keep the bearing from getting too […]
WASHINGTON — Almost a decade after Amtrak cancelled “National Train Day,” an outreach promotion launched in 2008 designed to familiarize potential customers with where its passenger trains go, organizations around the U.S. continue to use May 10 as a tentpole around which to generate interest. The date commemorates completion of the first transcontinental railroad at […]
Almost exactly 160 years ago, the American Civil War wound down to a messy and anticlimactic end. By December 1864, it was apparent the Union had prevailed. It didn’t necessarily win, but at least southern secession had been thwarted. If noticed at all, the anniversary might be an occasion to recount the many roles railroading […]
Railroad dome cars are a gleaming symbol of postwar passenger train status. The streamliner era in North America bookended the World War II era in the U.S., since new streamlined passenger cars were not a priority between 1942 and 1945. Following the end of the war in the latter year, they began to […]
The Fertilizer Route, more formally The Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad, featured 75 years ago in Trains Magazine was, in a word, “astonishing.” For a railroad that almost nobody has ever heard of beyond its own neighborhood, the 27-mile Norfolk & Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad is an astonishing property. It has only eight stockholders, […]
The rapid expansion of America’s railroad system in the 1800s and early 1900s was driven largely by a small group of powerful businessmen. Here we profile 12 of the most influential railroad magnates who helped shape modern America. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the men on this list built railroad empires connecting cities, opening the […]
CORINTH, N.Y. — The Saratoga Corinth & Hudson Railway, the heritage railway located on the former Delaware & Hudson Adirondack Branch, has added a third Alco RS3 with the arrival this week of No. 4085, a former D&H diesel long stored in Port Jervis, N.Y. The Delaware & Hudson Railway Historical Society announced the acquisition […]
ELBE, Wash. — A major wooden trestle on the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad has been destroyed in a potential arson fire, a major blow that has the operation asking for financial support. The heritage railway, in a Facebook post, says a fire at a 28-span bridge between Mineral and Morton, Wash., was reported about 6:40 […]
The commander of a May 1953 U.S. Army troop train out of Fort Meade, Md., confers with a Baltimore & Ohio passenger representative, the train conductor, and the Pullman conductor. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Union Pacific has unveiled its Abraham Lincoln commemorative locomotive, honoring the president who signed the bill creating Union Pacific as part of the transcontinental railroad. “Union Pacific exists because President Abraham Lincoln wasn’t afraid to ask, ‘What’s Possible?’” Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said at a ceremony in North Little […]
UNION, Ill. — A “mechanical issue” discovered during preparations for the 2025 season has led the Illinois Railway Museum to remove its Frisco 2-10-0, No. 1630, from service, IRM has announced. The museum will now begin the locomotive’s federally mandated 1,472-day inspection earlier than anticipated to address repairs and a return to service. The inspection […]
