Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes 2-foot-gauge Mogul No. 16 pokes out of the covered depot at Kingfield, Maine. Charlie French, Mallory Hope Ferrell coll. While still a teenager in the early 1950s, I corresponded with a man who had grown up on the 2-foot-gauge lines of Maine. Arthur French, by then elderly, collected Indian Head […]
FULL SCREEN Roger Varland Threading the maze of girders and other tracks while coming off the MacArthur Bridge into St. Louis. FULL SCREEN Roger Varland The sun is about gone as the Texas Eagle readies for points south at St. Louis. FULL SCREEN Roger Varland Union Pacific signal upgrades watch over a waiting Texas Eagle […]
The railroaders’ mantra has always been “hurry up and wait” and this CSX crew at Glendale, Ohio, in suburban Cincinnati is living up to their creed. This portion of the former Baltimore & Ohio Toledo to Cincinnati route is paired with the Norfolk Southern New Castle District in directional running; most trains passing Glendale are […]
A 1962 freight derailment spelled the end for the century-old Wabash depot at little Philo, Ill. Glen Brewer My clock-radio came on at the usual morning hour with the local news. The date was Wednesday, October 3, 1962. The announcer reported a train wreck in Philo, Ill., the previous evening, blocking the Wabash Railroad’s main […]
Read more about the Bruce Sterzing era on the D&H in three news articles from Trains magazine. Download each story by clicking on the underlined PDF below. “D&H: 150 Years Old and Still Solvent” by J. David Ingles, published in the May 1973 issue of Trains magazine D&H 150 Years Old DOWNLOAD “Learning the Alphabet” […]
Ever wonder how the UPS and FedEx Ground packages you ship travel across the country? They go by train. And in the December 2012 issue of Trains magazine, we take you inside one of the top railroad intermodal yards for FedEx and UPS Ground shipments: BNSF Railway’s Willow Springs terminal outside Chicago. We spent 24 hours inside […]
A westbound NJ Transit Main Line train of Comet I cars pulls out of the station at Waldwick, N.J., on Dec. 29, 2008. The Pullman-built cars, delivered to Erie Lackawanna, have since been retired. Photo by Matt Van Hattem […]
Q What happened to the permanently coupled two business cars, the “Virginia” and the “Carolina,” that the Southern Railway provided for its president and chairman?— Bob Sewell, Marysville, Wash. A The Virginia (NS 1) and the Carolina (NS 2) have been paired since they were built in 1928. Pullman originally constructed them for Southern Railway. […]
An Amtrak AEM7 rests between assignments at Washington Union Station on Jan. 14, 2009. Those motors don’t stay idle for long, and soon enough she’ll be racing along at up to 135 mph. Photo by Matt Van Hattem […]
Horseshoe Curve, 1940: Freight on track 1, passenger on track 2, smoke from a train climbing on track 3 or 4. H. W. Pontin You could not avoid liking my uncle, Matthew McGrail. Matt was a medical doctor in Bradford, Pa., by profession, but he was a full-time rail enthusiast. He befriended many crews of […]
It may look like a tiny handrail, but this is actually an AM antenna installed on some 1940s-era passenger cars. Michael Belcher Q What is the pipe on part of the roof of some 1940s-era diner and lounge cars as shown in Michael Belcher’s photo on page 90 of the April 2011 issue?— Randall Keils, […]
The black-and-white sign with dots tells the plow operator to raise flanges prior to crossings, switches, etc. Greg McDonnell Q What does a whiteboard sign with black circles mean? It’s near grade crossings and sometimes has one black circle, and sometimes two.— Mike Cough, Kemptville, Ont., Canada A That board (which can also be black […]
