Charge!

Virginia & Truckee 2-8-0 No. 29 charges past the depot in Gold Hill, Nev., in March 2010 on a portion of the rebuilt silver hauling railroad, high in the desert near Reno. Photo by Jim Wrinn […]

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Live at Red Rocks

A trio of General Electric-built GEVO locomotives powers an intermodal rain past North Guam, N.M., on April 11, 2011. The first two diesels belong to the class ES44C4, an A1A-A1A-trucked A.C. traction model built to perform to six-motor D.C. designs. Photo by Steven M. Welch […]

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Turbine power all the way

High speed in New England in the 1970s meant these turbine-powered trainsets built by United Aircraft, which sprinted between Boston and New York from 1969 to 1976. The two Turbotrains (Amtrak later bought a third set from VIA Rail Canada) achieved the route’s best-ever timings — 3 hours and 48 minutes between Boston and New […]

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Green, gold, and gorgeous!

Southern Railway 2-8-2 No. 4501 pulls a National Railway Historical Society convention train on Sept. 5, 1966 from Keysville, Va., to Richmond, Va. This was among the first excursions that led to the development of Southern Railway’s famous series of annual excursions that ran between 1966 and 1994. Today, the 1911 Baldwin is under restoration […]

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A Railroader’s Work is Never Done

The conductor of train BUSW, “The Peoria Rocket,” sweeps the north switch at the Limit Yard on the edge of Peoria, Ill., as the crew, southbound on Subdivision 2 of the Iowa Interstate, prepares to interchange an empty Cedar Rapids, Iowa, coal train with the Tazewell & Peoria Railroad on Dec. 13, 2010. Steve Smedley […]

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