In the early 2000s, North America’s 88 automobile assembly plants produced about 15 million new cars and trucks a year. And railroads moved 70 percent of the vehicles built in the United States alone. Most Canadian and U.S. plants are concentrated in a wide corridor stretching from Toronto to Mobile, Ala. Plants in Mexico are […]
Colorado & Southern narrow gauge 2-8-0s Nos. 70 and 73 cross the high bridge on the Georgetown Loop with seven cars. The engines are moving at only 5 mph due to the frail nature of the bridge on May 14, 1938. Photo by R. H. Kindig […]
Click the image to download a PDF of this article as it would appear in TRAINS magazine. Mouse over photos in the PDF for bonus information and click hyperlinks to go to websites. While on a Caribbean cruise a few winters ago, my wife and I discovered a remarkable tourist railroad that operates on 18 […]
Freshly made coke still smokes in company hoppers as an Aliquippa & Southern switcher hustles empty slag pots back to the blast furnaces on May 10, 1981. The pots have been sprayed with a release agent at the slag dump to prevent the molten slag from sticking in them. Otherwise, it’s jackhammer time! Kevin Tomasic […]
Southern Pacific 4-6-0 No. 9 rolls on one of the last narrow gauge lines in the West with a Class I railroad as a parent. Bill Poole, Carson & Colorado Railway Inc. collection Southern Pacific’s 3-foot gauge line in California’s Owens Valley became famous as one of the last slim gauge lines in the West […]
U.S. Sugar Corp.’s common carrier and private railroads could face new futures under a planned Florida Everglades restoration, as we reported in the September 2009 issue of Trains. Lets look back and see what the railroad looked like when steam reigned. These two photos show examples of steam power working the sugar cane lines. Also, […]
