The Norfolk & Western Railway transported much of the coal mined in southwestern Virginia and West Virginia. Many loads went north to Lake Erie, others to “tidewater” at N&W’s big terminal in Norfolk, Va., opened in 1885. Here it was loaded in vessels for shipment to ports up the East Coast or for overseas export. […]
SP’s Los Angeles General Shops UCLA Dept. of Geography, Air Photo Archives Southern Pacific facilities dominate three views of Los Angeles. Much in this 1934 scene is gone, or greatly changed. SP’s Los Angeles General Shops, the most complete railroad maintenance facility the city has ever seen, was replaced by an intermodal yard in the […]
This 1940’s afternoon photo looks northeast from over the Cape Fear River across the north end of downtown Wilmington, N.C. (the ocean is 6 miles to the east). Atlantic Coast Line’s history in the port city dates to 1840, when the Wilmington & Raleigh opened a 161-mile line northwest to Weldon. After the Civil War […]
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad began by linking its namesake cities, and eventually grew to reach New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Atlanta. But Kentucky’s largest city was L&N’s home, heart, and headquarters, and the Bluegrass State’s top natural resource — coal — sustained the carrier that came to call itself “the Old Reliable.” In […]
Featured in the October 2020 Model Railroader, Thom Radice’s HO scale Western & Atlantic model train layout is set during the American Civil War and a line that ran between Atlanta, Ga., and Chattanooga, Tenn. […]
Canadian National coal train C77951 (Winniandy, Alta., to Vancover, B.C.) thunders through Jasper, Alta., on April 6, 2009. Both CN and competitor Canadian Pacific move high-grade metallurgical coal from western Canadian mines to the Vancover-area port of Roberts Bank for export. Tim Stevens photo […]
Acela power car No. 2035 visits Stamford, Conn., on a February 2006 day. Amtrak introduced the high speed Acela trainsets to its Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor in 2000. Peter Cudsen photo […]
BNSF Railway ES44DC 7248 leads a westbound intermodal train through the Columbia River Gorge past Skamania, Wash., in the fall of 2009. The lead locomotive was delivered earlier in the year. Ron Burkhard photo […]
A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority train stares down a red signal at Worcester, Mass., the end of the run for Framingham Line trains, at dusk on Oct. 18, 2008. Soon the train will reverse direction and head back to Boston, with the engine pushing. Matt Van Hattem photo […]
Louisville & Nashville Cumberland Valley fast freight No. 66 leaves the north portal of Hagans Tunnel in May 1966. Three fairly new General Electric U25Cs are on the point of this train, which has just passed through L&N’s longest tunnel at 6,244-feet. Ron Flanary photo […]
Florida East Coast train No. 218 passes Boca Raton, Fla., on April 11, 2008. The railroad, now a sister to RailAmerica, depends on intermodal and aggregate shipments to sustain its Miami-Jacksonville, Fla., route. Thomas J. Nanos photo […]
Two Norfolk Southern six-axle GEs haul BNSF office cars south on the former Southern Railway main line at Spencer, N.C. in October 1999. The train was on an inspection tour for TTX, the freight car company. Jim Wrinn photo […]
