Milwaukee Road’s Viroqua Patrol, with an Alco RSD5 in charge, crosses the Burlington Northern’s ex-Chicago, Burlington & Quincy main line at Grande Crossing in La Crosse, Wis., on Oct. 9, 1971. “Patrol” was the Milwaukee’s name for a local freight and Viroqua was a town on a branch located southeast of La Crosse. J. W. […]
The Denver & Rio Grande Western, symbol of so much of Colorado railroading, had nowhere else to go for traffic. After laying tracks in search of gold and silver, it was coal that made the road. A westbound freight appropriately heads up Coal Creek Canyon west of Denver on the Front Range in 1972. Ron […]
Illinois Terminal GP38-2 No. 2004 leads two sisters and a Conrail GP38-2 at Granite City, Ill., in August 1980. The IT units display the road’s final scheme, applied in the years prior to the 1982 Norfolk & Western takeover. Paul H. Dalman, J. David Ingles collection […]
Norfolk & Western’s top fast-freight engines were 43 class A simple articulated 2-6-6-4s. No. 1239, built in 1949 as part of the final A order, couples to time freight 84 at Roanoke. Sister 1218 would rise to fame in the 1980s under successor Norfolk Southern’s steam program. W. A. Akin Jr. photo […]
The Pennsylvania Railroad liked to double-head K4s Pacifics on heavy passenger trains. Here, the second section of eastbound train 76, the Trail Blazer, leaves Englewood, Ill., in south suburban Chicago in January 1941. Paul Eilenberger, Harold Stinton collection […]
After doubling its train together at Clare Yard in Cincinnati, train 78 prepares to depart east for Portsmouth, Ohio, over the Peavine in December 1959. Doubling the train blocked the Pennsylvania’s main line diamond at Clare. Tom Smart, J. David Ingles collection […]
Colorado Railroad Museum founder Bob Richardson moves a three-way switch at the Narrow Gauge Museum south of Alamosa, Colo., in the mid-1950s. This was the initial gathering point for the collection before it moved to Golden in 1958. The Mears Junction sign is from the place where the Rio Grande’s Marshall Pass and Valley narrow […]
Trailers were loaded and unloaded at mid-century “circus style” by means of a ramp at the end of a track and retractable bridge plates between cars. Here, a Southern Pacific trailer moves along a string of flatcars. Robert Hale photo […]
In southwest Indiana, well-kept caboose 101 brings up the rear of a train on the Algers, Winslow & Western, a 16-mile coal-hauling short line, in May 1952. Ed Theisinger photo […]
Louisville & Nashville 4-8-2 No. 407 on Cincinnati–Birmingham train 7 passes 2-8-0 No. 1212 on a northbound freight on double track 10 miles south of Louisville in November 1948. C. William Streit photo […]
A rakish Otto Kuhler–designed observation car brings up the rear of a Hiawatha departing Milwaukee, 85 miles from the end of its Minneapolis–Chicago run. W. A. Akin Jr. photo […]
Crowds have gathered at Tacoma, Wash., on June 29, 1947, to witness the departure of the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha on its first run to Seattle, Minneapolis, and Chicago. John F. Endler Jr. photo […]
