Join Trains Magazine and video contributor Kevin Gilliam for a look at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s 2017 opening weekend. You’ll see former Southern Railway 2-8-0 No. 630 and Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia high-nose GP38 No. 80 in service on passenger trains! […]
Join Trains and videographer Kevin Gilliam for a look at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Blue Unit circus train on its trek to Charleston, W.Va. You’ll see the train traverse West Virginia coal country, and on the new Kanawha River Railroad. […]
What would it have been like to spend one day at a perfect train-watching spot in the 1950s and 1960s? This 30-page download takes you back in time, with contributors sharing their experiences from memorable trips across the United States. This free guide provides plenty of pictures, too, with classic railroad photos from a bygone […]
This special series offers an overview of intercity and passenger railroading in North America. Our free, 30-page PDF download includes the following features: Beech Grove to the Rescue An inside look at Amtrak’s rolling stock repair facility, where an injection of stimulus funding has been used to repair passenger cars and sidelined P40 locomotives. Taking […]
An E unit leads a train through Berwyn, Ill., on a lazy day in August 1963. Such scenes were part of daily life along the Burlington’s triple-track main west of Chicago. Larry Kostka It didn’t matter how often you rode the trains, or even if you did at all. Growing up in the postwar era […]
Ten hoppers coupled to the Big Boy consist in January 2014 were used for additional braking power. Steve Sweeney Q Why was there a string of hopper cars in the consist moving Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014 from Pomona to West Colton, Calif., in January 2014? – David Tritenbach, Kerrville, Texas A Although Union […]
The electrification of U.S. railroads has long been a vision for the future that’s never reached its full potential. From 18th century technology development, to early 20th century progress on major electric traction projects, the United States was a world leader in railroad electrification. But electrification expansion projects were halted during World War II and, […]
To launch our all-new operation-oriented series, Charlie Conway captures a day in the life of a hardworking SMS Rail Lines crew in New Jersey. In this narrated show, you’ll discover useful modeling insights and prototype railroad information you can apply to your own layout operating sessions. You won’t want to miss any of the shortline […]
Scale test cars are used to calibrate in-track scales that weigh freight cars. The car shown above was built in 1891 and served until the 1980s. Jim Battle Q The car in this picture was in the New York, Susquehanna & Western’s Little Ferry, N.J., yard in September 1978. Do you know if it is […]
Join Kevin Gilliam trackside in North Carolina in February 2017 for a day when both red and blue units of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus train pass by. Only from Trains! […]
Like many old steam men, PRR engineman W. A. Eby disliked diesels, but he manages a smile in the cab of S12 No. 8734 working the Bellefonte local in 1957. Michael Hauk collection I never knew Walter A. Eby, my dad’s foster father. He passed away in 1963, when I was two years old. I […]
On Sept. 25, 2007, a Montana Rail Link local in Livingston, Mont., heads onto an old branch line that once went to Gardiner, Mont., and the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The GP35s are taking four wood chip cars and a caboose (for the return back-up move) to a lumber mill about a mile […]
