Surrounded by the new wave of motive power, a Boston & Maine worker rests at Boston’s Charlestown engine terminal in May 1952. E7 3818, a Budd RDC3, and Alco RS3 1515 and siblings at right can ignore the steam locomotive facilities, all but obsolete by now. B&M’s “Minute Man” emblem dated from 1945. Frank and […]
Culver Tower in Muscatine, Iowa, guarded the junction of Milwaukee Road and Rock Island main lines on the southwest side of town. From there trains operated on joint Milwaukee-Rock Island trackage to the Quad Cities. The tower, shown in 1950, closed in November 1977. Robert Lawler photo […]
The New Haven was a pioneer in hauling common-carrier trailers. Here, a solid cut of piggyback cars passes Cos Cob, Conn., en route from Boston to New York City in the late 1950s. Jim Shaughnessy photo […]
The plaza for newly minted New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal remains unfinished in this 1954 view. Previously, the site was occupied by the former Union Station. In the distance, past the Claiborne Avenue overpass, is the NOUPT coach yard and diesel shop. Leon Trice photo […]
Four Burlington Northern SD45s, led by No. 6536, power a westbound freight through the shadows of grain elevators at Des Lacs, N.Dak., in November 1973. The railroad rostered 222 such locomotives inherited from Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and St. Louis-San Francisco. John M. Robinson Jr. photo […]
A Chesapeake & Ohio Mallet starts downgrade for Barrett, W.Va., with loads from Eastern Gas & Fuel’s Wharton No. 2 mine in June 1955. Trains’ Editor David P. Morgan tracked two cars from mine to Tidewater in the April 1956 issue. W.A. Akin Jr. photo […]
New York Central J-1 Hudson No. 5403 accelerates west at Mattoon, Ill., with an express train for St. Louis in September 1954. When built in in 1927, the Central was given to throwing up marble monuments of stations, running seven-section Centurys, and paying 8-percent dividends. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Ore train ZBB exits Black Rock Tunnel and crosses the Schuylkill River in Phoenixville, Pa., on March 9, 1984, with SD60 No. 6702 leading. Conrail hauled ore 110 miles from Philadelphia’s Greenwich Point Pier to Bethlehem Steel’s namesake city. Robert Palmer photo […]
What could you have seen at the annual (all scales) Railroad Hobby Show held in Springfield, Massachusetts, on January 25-26, 2020? Follow along as MR associate editor Eric White shares his walk-and-talk tour of the various buildings of the Eastern States Expo Fairgrounds, each housing all sorts of vendors, displays, layouts, and so much more! […]
Denver & Rio Grande Western’s Royal Gorge, powered by an A-B-B-A set of EMD FT’s, makes its customary 10-minute stop in its namesake canyon so its passengers can take in the place’s natural beauty. DRGW photo […]
Browse hundreds of photos from the Classic Trains archive. […]
Three Seaboard Coast Line U30Bs work at Atlanta’s Tilford Yard in 1980. The railroad had 19 such locomotives on its roster, inherited from both Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line. All rode on EMD trucks from trade-ins. Jim Wrinn photo […]
