UNION, Ill. — A few spaces remain for a night photo session set for Oct. 7 at the Illinois Railway Museum as part of its “Steam Into Fall” event, marking the end of the museum’s 2023 operating season. The session will feature Frisco No. 1630, the museum’s “Russian Decapod” built by Baldwin in 1918, and […]
CASS, W.Va. — Cass Scenic Railroad operator Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad has acquired a two-truck Heisler locomotive, Builder’s No. 1589, from Stuart Thayer of Thomas, W.Va., bringing to three the number of Heisler locomotives on Cass and DGVR property. Built in September 1929 for Fisher Lumber Co. of Holly Grove, Ark., as its No. […]
BOONTON, N.J. — With persistent rain canceling both the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey’s annual Museum-for-a-Day event and the town’s street fair, the group quickly shifted on Sunday, Sept. 24, to a no-frills open house, showing off two newly painted historic diesel locomotives in their first public display. Live music and other attractions […]
Delaware & Hudson RS2 4001 and Canadian Pacific 4-6-2 2471 idle under the shed at Canadian Pacific’s Windsor Station, Montreal, in October 1953. The diesel has just arrived with the Laurentian from New York. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
History of track gauge: The gauge of a railroad is the distance between the inside vertical surfaces of the head of the rail. Standard gauge is 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches. This is the gauge used when steam railroading began. It became the common gauge of Britain, North America, and Western Europe — except for Spain, […]
Railroad ghost town When the evening breeze whispers, Rhyolite, a railroad ghost town in Nevada, almost seems to come alive. One can imagine people strolling the concrete sidewalks under electric streetlights while strains of music float from the air-conditioned opera house. Children and their parents are enjoying locally prepared ice cream, the telegraph office is […]
The City of Miami passenger train one of three coordinated services linking Chicago with Miami. There was a time — like, as recently as 1979 — there was direct rail passenger service between the Upper Midwest (notably Chicago) and Florida. This ended with several slashes of Amtrak routes as a result of budget […]
The Amtrak GE P30CH locomotive is the spiritual successor to the GE U30CG passenger locomotive of 1967. Amtrak acquired 25 of the P30CH model, Nos. 700-724, between August 1975 and January 1976. The model designation led to the units’ nickname: “pooch.” It was essentially a U30C freight locomotive with a cowl body and […]
Canadian National AC44C6M No. 3309, which was rebuilt at the Wabtec plant in Fort Worth last year, now sports the railway’s steam era logo on its long hood. The unit was first spotted with the so-called “wafer” logo last week. The 3309 has been on the point of the CN business train since departing Markham, […]
Death Valley Railroad Of all the places to run a railroad, perhaps the last you might expect to find one is California’s Death Valley. I mean, come on. Locals, what there are of them, claim it can be the hottest place on Earth in the summer. As for water, well, there’s not much of that […]
Georgia Railroad locomotives included a mix of small steam designs and EMD models. By 1914 the Georgia Road was powered by an assortment of 4-4-0s, 0-6-0s, Moguls, Ten-Wheelers, four modern Lima 2-8-2s, and a pair of light Pacifics. A handful of all-steel baggage cars, RPOs, and coaches shared the car roster with a […]
In the steam era, perhaps no sight was as unconventional as an encounter with one of the Southern Pacific cab-forwards. These monstrous AC class 4-8-8-2 steam locomotives turned engine design almost literally on its head by flipping the position of the cab and the firebox to the front. As they would in the diesels that […]
