Magic carpet to Durham

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Southern Railway 2-8-0 No. 400 powered a boy’s “magic carpet” mixed train to Durham, N.C. Curt Tillotson Jr. collection What an adventure this was for a 7-year-old, impressionable young man, already a lover of trains. Indeed, every minute of the 4-hour trip from Stovall to Durham, N.C. (approximately 45 miles), is still fresh in my […]

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End of the Line

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N&W’s eastbound Pocahontas descends Christiansburg Hill toward Roanoke on April 21, 1971 – ten days before Amtrak. J. David Ingles The air was chilly and damp as I stood beneath the eaves of the weather-beaten depot in Lynchburg, Va. I was waiting for the train that would take me back to Cincinnati one last time. […]

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Cruel and inhuman punishment

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Low-drivered 2-8-0 No. 2174 struggles to keep up with 4-6-0 No. 1389 on CN train 48 for Winnipeg. Hal Lewis In the 1950s, Canadian National, as a government-owned railroad, was forced to operate many money-losing passenger trains because these trains were the only available mode of transportation in the areas they served. Such was the […]

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Showtime in Pasadena

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“Big, beautiful” Santa Fe 4-8-4 3779 talks it up through Pasadena’s Lamanda Park area with First No. 3, the California Limited for Los Angeles, in June 1945. Stan Kistler I lived in Pasadena, Calif., during the final days of steam on the Santa Fe. I particularly remember the 3776-class 4-8-4’s built by Baldwin in 1941. […]

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Second 68 and the Lafayette Helper

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With engineer Steiner at the throttle of Nickel Plate Road 893, fireman Jennings shows photographer Lewis the coal scoop, which Lewis often wielded aboard the old 2-8-0. Hal Lewis In 1949, on the Nickel Plate Road’s Peoria Division, a daily eastbound local freight, operated as Second 68, ran from Peoria to Frankfort, Ind. Its power […]

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