DUNCANSVILLE, Pa. — After a 10-month restoration, former Lehigh & New England office car No. 100 is ready to start carrying first-class passengers for its new owner, the Everett Railroad. After L&NE quit running in 1961, the car served as a restaurant annex near Philadelphia before trolley broker Ed Metka of Windber, Pa., bought it […]
BC Rail In May 1996, during the long Canadian weekend celebrating Victoria Day, a national holiday, there was a crew shortage in Lillooet, British Columbia, on BC Rail. Normally, Lillooet had a fairly quiet joint conductors spare board — one could sit second-out for the better part of a week! That weekend, most of the […]
Gil Reid’s prized Auto Train watercolor Wall calendars have always been an effective business advertising tool, and some of the most memorable and collectable have been products of the public relations departments of America’s railroads. Anxious to make establish the branding of its role as the newly formed National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Amtrak began producing […]
WASHINGTON — Amtrak is temporarily combining the Capitol Limited and Silver Star trains to create the new Floridian. Amtrak says the change is due to the upcoming East River Tunnel Rehabilitation Project in New York. During this project, one tunnel tube will be closed at a time, minimizing service impacts, maximizing construction access and modernizing the tunnel infrastructure to […]
Combine culinary style of the late 1800s, the taste of one railroad magnate and the inspiration of another plus throw in a touch of crazy. The result is an attempt to satisfy a national craving for oysters. The old saying stands that necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, the need was finding […]
When it comes to showmanship in mainline mountain railroading, California’s Tehachapi Pass can be described as a grand theater. Located between Bakersfield and Mojave, historic Tehachapi Loop is at center stage, an impressive helix stretching three-quarters of a mile while looping over itself to gain 77 feet in elevation. The loop itself sits at about […]
COLESVILLE, Md. — A unique predecessor to the renowned hi-rail vehicle has recently hit the road for a renewal in its preservation odyssey. The National Capital Trolley Museum announced in a Sept. 17 post on Facebook and Instagram the acquisition of Evans Auto-Railer No. 109. The 1936-built vehicle was transported on Sept. 9 on a […]
Amtrak has honored past passenger trains over the years by inheriting their names. How many are in service today and how close — or far — do they follow the original routes? Auto Train Eugene K. Garfield’s Auto-Train carried passengers and their automobiles over the former Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac and Seaboard Coast Line railroads […]
DULUTH, Minn. – The Lake Superior Railroad Museum has restored a former Erie Mining hi-rail car — a 1957 Pontiac — to service. The Pontiac Chieftain station wagon was put into service in 1957 on Erie Mining Co.’s 74-mile main line between Hoyt Lakes and Taconite Harbor. The vehicle traveled an estimated 110,000 […]
Four decades later, I still chuckle when I think about the grouchy old farmer who jumped on my locomotive at a central Iowa grade crossing, cast iron fry pan in hand, and cussed me out like he was a drunken sailor! It was summer 1979. I had been a qualified Chicago & North Western Railway […]
Detroit once had a robust passenger-train network that included two commuter routes that survived into the early 1980s. But when public funding of those trains ended, so did the Detroit commuter trains. Grand Trunk Western began Detroit-Pontiac commuter service on Aug. 1, 1931. Steam locomotives pulled some of the three daily roundtrips until […]
The photo is at once ordinary and extraordinary. Ordinary because the photographer had to grab it on the fly, shooting a low-angle wedge shot in low light as a New York Central steam locomotive snuck up on him out of nowhere. The photo is a bit dark and shows little of its creator’s compositional genius. […]
