Gloves come off in DM&E, Mayo Clinic dispute

WASHINGTON and SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The fight between the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern and the Mayo Clinic over DM&E’s effort to expand into Wyoming’s Powder River Basin and route coal trains through Mayo’s home city of Rochester, Minn., grew testy as each side made accusations about the other Thursday. At a news conference at […]

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Where to hike

Trains Magazine placeholder image

Will the U.S. rails-with-trails movement continue gaining momentum? Or will rail safety and congestion issues stop it in its tracks? In the September 2005 issue, Trains Magazine looked at the issues surrounding locations where recreational activities and active rail lines coexist in a shared space. Want to sample some of these trails yourself? Below is […]

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Own a caboose

Caboose move

At 17 feet, 5 inches, the caboose cleared all bridges and power lines on its 20-mile road trip. Steve Hendrix Preserving a 25-ton caboose in my backyard wasn’t something that I had always planned on. Sure, I liked trains as a kid and even have a small model railroad layout. But an HO-scale train circling […]

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Oakland to Sacramento, Calif.

Amtrak at Pinole, CA

A westbound Capitol Corridor train, led by Amtrak F59PHI No. 464, makes a fine sight as it curves along the shore of San Pablo Bay in Pinole, Calif. Read on to learn about more picturesque train-watching locations between Oakland and Sacramento. Elrond Lawrence So you’re traveling to San Francisco, and have just a few days […]

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Inside Willow Springs

Willow Springs gantry cranes

A groundsman watches while an overhead crane lowers another truck trailer onto a flatcar at BNSF’s Willow Springs intermodal facility. Matt Van Hattem You can feel the heat rising from the asphalt beneath you on this humid summer evening. But your attention is directed elsewhere, at two men in reflectorized vests who-without saying a single […]

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Images of Amtrak

Amtrak E8

Even before he joined Amtrak as a locomotive engineer in 1986, Doug Riddell had been operating the corporation’s passenger trains under contract as a Seaboard Coast Line engineer, and had been photographing their colorful locomotives and consists in and around his native Virginia since Amtrak’s inception in 1971. Here we present some of his favorite […]

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The challenge and promise of intermodal

Hanjin containers

International steamship companies like Hanjin Shipping contract with U.S. railroads to move containers from ocean ports to inland terminals, and to ferry containers moving between Asia and Europe across the North American continent. Howard Ande Larry Gross is Senior Vice President – Marketing for trailer manufacturer Wabash National Corp., provider of the RoadRailer intermodal system […]

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Distinctive diesels

FT 103

Four-unit locomotive No. 103 of GM’s Electro-Motive Corporation. Electro-Motive FT Tagged “the diesel that did it” by David P. Morgan, longtime editor of Trains Magazine, in a 1960 feature story, four-unit locomotive No. 103 of General Motors’ Electro-Motive Corporation was outshopped at a Grange, IL, plant in November 1939 (the firm later became GM’s Electro-Motive […]

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EMD F7: The most famous face in railroading

EMD F7

“COVERED WAGONS.” “CARBODY UNITS.” “STREAMLINERS.” “F UNITS.” Call ’em what you will, when you’re talking the F-for-freight series from General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division, you’re talking the most famous diesel in railroading. Maybe “F” should stand for Face. It’s the famous “bulldog nose” that did it. It hit the road with FT demonstrator quartet 103, “the […]

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