In Great Trains 2024 the power and romance of the rails is captured through the paintings of Gil Bennett. There are paintings of classic passenger trains of the past, along with locomotives that moved freight and goods across this land. From the diminutive 2-4-4T of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad to Union Pacific’s big 4-6-6-4 Challenger, trains from coast to coast are depicted with historical details about the railroads and trains pictured.

This 2024 monthly wall calendar features: Large blocks for notes | Superb printing quality | Heavy 100-pound paper | Deluxe 11- by 14-inch size

Locomotives and trains featured in this edition include:
• In 1937, the Richmond Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad ordered five 4-8-4 locomotives from the Baldwin Locomotive Works for fast freight and passenger service. Being a “Southern” railroad, they called these Generals instead of the regular moniker of “Northern.”
• On February 12, 1909, a light snow started that ended up dumping six feet of snow on the western slope of Cumbres Pass. This closed the Denver & Rio Grande line over the pass and stranded several trains. The railroad had two rotary snowplows, OM and ON, but a mild winter was forecast, so OM was sent to Denver to be rebuilt. ON was clearing the line over Marshall Pass.
• A light snow falls as Union Pacific Challenger 3989 heads up the 1.7% grade out of Ogden, Utah in 1948. Challenger 3989 is headed against an east wind as it struggles up the steep grade at 12 mph. Back at the end of the train, a big 2-10-2 pushes to keep the train moving.
• Western Pacific 901A is at the top of Silver Zone Pass. Snow-covered Pilot Peak is in the back on the Utah–Nevada border.
• Here Union Pacific GP30 718, GP30B 731, and GP30 817 take the local back to Ogden on a cool day in May.
• Every week during World War II,
the Logan High marching band and well wishers would send off sailors, soldiers, and airmen. The Utah-Idaho Central station at Logan, Utah, was filled with the crowds that would spill out into the street. UIC train 206 would depart at 11:35 a.m. with mail, passengers, and the newly drafted kids, heading off to meet trains in Ogden.
• To run their freight trains, the road ordered eighty large 2-8-4 Berkshires from ALCO and Lima Locomotive works. These locomotives would regularly handle freight trains at speeds over 60 mph for an enviable on time performance.To keep trains moving, even coal and ore trains would run at 45 to 50 mph, as seen here. Berkshire 761 accelerates its ore train out of a small town in Ohio on a warm summer morning.
• Here we see the Hooterville Cannon Ball stopped at the Shady Rest Hotel water stop with Betty Jo in the cab talking to Earl of Petticoat Junction. The locomotive, Sierra number 3, is a Rogers 4-6-0 built in 1891. It still runs today.
• Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad locomotive #8, a Mason Machine Works Bogie, pulls a train into East Boston in 1906. This was once the most heavily traveled passenger line in the United States.
• Denver & Rio Grande locomotive 361, a C-21, and 454, a K-27, help the road engine 456, a K-27, move a loaded twenty-car stock train up Cerro Summit in western Colorado in 1947.
• Altoona was the main shop and locomotive complex of the Pennsylvania Railroad, building cars and steam and electric
locomotives. The busy line through town saw more than 200 freight and passenger trains and helper movements daily. All passenger trains would get a helper to climb up the grade west of town, and freights would get both a helper on the front and pushers on the rear to move tonnage up the mountain. Here 6459, a 2-10-4 J1a, and 4587, an I1sa 2-10-0, shove hard on the back of a heavy freight train as it blasts past the tower at Slope.
• The shrill cry of a whistle reverberates against the crystal-trimmed depot at Elkhorn, Nebraska, as a frosty Union Pacific 2-10-2 and 4-12-2 hustle tonnage westward on Christmas Day, 1951. Clear exhaust forms a white muffler for the charging steamers as helper engine 5057 and road engine 9504 head southeast in the sub-zero morning.

Published by Tide-mark Press © 2023

Beginning in 1852, Rock Island built lines from Chicago north to Minneapolis, west to Denver and south to Galveston on more than 10,000 miles of track. Locomotives pictured here range from a steam-era 2-8-0 Mikado built in 1906, an M-50 4-8-2 from 1920, and early diesels, as well as named trains like the Peoria Rocket and more. As the song says, “Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.”
• Large blocks for notes
• Superbly printed throughout
• Reproduced on quality 100-pound paper
• Deluxe 11 by 14-inch size

Locomotives and trains featured include:
√ Rock Island 400, a Class H15-44 and one of only two purchased from Fairbanks-Morse, was delivered in December 1948.
√ Rock Island 4347 and four other EMD Model GP-38-2s lead a freight at Memphis, TN, on February 19, 1977.
√ Rock Island 1732, an oil-fired Class C-43 Mikado (2-8-0), is leading a westbound freight near Tucumcari, NM, on May 11, 1940. 1732, built in 1906 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, is in its last year of service.
√ Rock Island 646 and another E8A are leading Train #12, the eastbound “Peoria Rocket” making a station stop at Joliet, IL, on April 25, 1969.
√ Rock Island 639 and 632 (both EMD E-7As) are leading eastbound Train 502, the “Peoria Rocket” out of Peoria, IL, headed for Chicago on July 15, 1959.
√ Rock Island “Jet Rocket” (Model LWT-12) 3 is leading a southbound commuter train approaching Roosevelt Road, Chicago, IL, on June 2, 1960.
√ Rock Island 602, a Model TA, one of six built for the Rock Island in 1937 by Electro-Motive Corporation in 1937, is at Council Bluffs, IA in the summer of 1953.
√ Rock Island 1341, an EMD GP18 delivered in January 1960, is leading two other EMD units, both GP-9’s, with a “Royal American Circus” train in tow southbound at Dayton’s Bluff, St. Paul, MN, on August 27, 1969.
√ When it came to commuter trains, Rock Island had a big power selection. Here is 495, one of 15 Model RS-3s received from the American Locomotive Company in September 1950.
√ Rock Island 658 and a B Unit are on the point of Train #10, the eastbound “Corn Belt Rocket” at the Omaha, NE, depot on November 15, 1969.
√ Rock Island 4020, a Class M-50 oil-fired Mountain (4-8-2) built by the Brooks Locomotive Works in 1920, is leaving Denver, CO on November 26, 1949 with an eastbound mixed train
√ Rock Island 93, an EMD Model FTA, sits at Council Bluffs, IA, with an FTB and an F-2A on December 29, 1952.

Published by Tide-mark Press © 2023