F3 to Monon

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Red and gray Monon F3’s on the Louisville–Chicago Tippecanoe pause at Crawfordsville, Ind., in fall 1948. Dick Howell Back in the 1950s, when I was working for Kalmbach Publishing Co. but before I moved my family to be with me in Milwaukee, the Monon Route played an important role in getting me to and from Indianapolis […]

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Stalking Coaling Towers in Maine

FULL SCREEN David Kahler To my delight I found not one, but two concrete coaling towers straddling the BAR rail yard. Originally the towers were connected with an overhead conveyer for coal. The left tower was primary and supplied coal for BAR freight locomotives while the right tower provided coal for the Maine Central passenger […]

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Fitchburg Line on the eve of change

One of Boston’s oldest historic lines, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s Fitchburg/South Acton Line between Boston and Fitchburg (built in 1845) is undergoing some major changes, with new station facilities, more double track, new equipment, and a 5-mile extension of service to Wachusett. Trains magazine brings you all the details in its December 2013 issue. Photographer […]

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Drew’s Trackside Adventures, Episode 9 – Tower A2 in Chicago

A Metra passenger train speeds north with downtown Chicago in the background.

In part 2 of Drew’s trip to Chicago, he visits two towers along Metra’s former Milwaukee Road lines – A5 and A2. In this video, Drew gives you a close-up look inside the towers, and you get to meet the people who run these busy railroad junction points. […]

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History According to Hediger: Modeling the Auto-Train in HO scale

Diesel locomotives with auto carriers

Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page In the 1970s, then editor Linn Westcott asked young associate editor Jim Hediger to build an HO model of the Auto-Train for the cover of the December 1974 issue of MR – all 38 cars of it! Jim shares the models he built […]

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A minor adjustment, please

On May 29, 1961, engineer Walter Good tightens the spark arrestor on Cass Shay No. 1 after the engine started a brush fire. The railroad was in transition at the time from logging railroad to tourist attraction. Check out more Cass and West Virginia coverage in the August 2013 issue of Trains magazine. Photo by John P. Killoran […]

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An underrated diesel

NH-PP-716

Once a proud hauler of crack passenger trains and fast freights as a DL109 diesel locomotive, New Haven test vehicle PP 716 languishes in Boston in 1968, awaiting its fate: the scrapper’s torch. Bruce Beardsley If Alco’s famous PA diesel is perhaps a bit overrated, as implied in the January 2004 issue of Trains magazine, then the […]

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