Cross the continent and share the drama of “high iron” on Class I railroads like BNSF and CSX, KCS, and UP. High-stepping regionals like East Penn, Pend Oreille Valley and Delaware & Hudson are featured, too, while classic locomotive 148 (4-6-2) rolls on U.S. Sugar rails, and the Pere Marquette (2-8-4) steams for the North Pole. Railroading! includes descriptive commentary about the featured railroads, rolling stock, and 24 full-color photographs. All aboard!
This 2023 monthly wall calendar features: Large blocks for notes | Superb printing quality | Heavy 100-pound paper | Deluxe 11- by 14-inch size
Locomotives and railroads featured in this edition include:
• Splashed with momentary sunlight, a westbound BNSF grain train is crossing the causeway separating Frog Pond from the Clark Fork between mileposts 56 and 57 at Trout Creek. The train is led by General Electric ET44C4 locomotive 3278, built in 2020, along with 9362, an older EMD SD70ACe, built in 2006.
• During a Montana snowstorm on February 6, 2021, BNSF GE ET44C4 No. 3943 leads an eastbound unit oil train across the Clark Fork on Bridge 57 west of Trout Creek.
• As clouds from a recent storm dissipate, the silence in the South Boulder Creek Valley is broken by a quartet of ex-Southern Pacific General Electric AC4400CW locomotives hauling an empty unit coal train west through the snow-covered trees at Crescent.
• A winter tradition since 1940, the Ski Train carried skiers 56 miles from downtown Denver, Colo. climbing 4,000 feet through the mountains of the Front Range to Winter Park Resort.
• The Rocky Mountains and Pike’s Peak fade into the horizon as north-bound BNSF train H-SLADEN1-10 journeys up the Joint Line at Greenland, Colo. The train is led by engine 6968, a General Electric ES44C4, as it moves freight between Slaton, Tex. and Denver, Colo.
• A block of FedEx trailers on flat cars is on the head pin of BNSF train number B-DENSBD4-10 as it rolls into Colorado Springs, Colo. Led by engines 5119 and 7389, this intermodal train is carrying a string of trailers from Denver, Colo. to San Bernardino, Calif.
• CSX Transportation painted its executive train or office car special into the heritage colors of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad during 2021. Making the debut run with three EMD F40PH-2s, the CSXT P001-14 is seen rolling through Ashland, Ky., badged as CSX 1.
• Leading intermodal train Q01604, 3194, a General Electric ES44AC, is rolling through Viaduct Junction in Cumberland, Md. on July 5, 2021, as it passes engine 9999, an EMD FP40PH, paused on the Mountain Subdivision connector.
• Four DL Alcos are seen leading a southbound empty hopper train at Olyphant, Penn., en route from Carbondale to Scranton on former D&H trackage.
• Engine 1802, an Alco RS11 built for the Nickel Plate Road in 1959, leads a passenger charter of the Medina Railroad Museum at Medina, N.Y.
• Reunion of the past with the present, locomotive 148, a 4-6-2 Pacific, took an initial post-restoration test run in 2020, a century after it was built at Alco’s Richmond Works.
• Among the company’s oldest locomotives are former Illinois Central Gulf GP11s, one of which is seen leading an SCXF cane train across the Caloosahatchee Canal at Moore Haven, Fla.
• A Reading Blue Mountain and Northern (RBMN) fall foliage passenger special rolls southbound over the former Central Railroad of New Jersey’s Hometown High Bridge in Hometown, Penn, on October 9, 2021. The train is led by RBMN 270, an EMD F9a and RBMN 275, an EMD F7b unit, with assistance from engine 5019, an EMD SD50-2.
• Pennsylvania’s East Penn Railroad (ESPN) engine 2801, an EMD GP38-2, wears an attractive blue and yellow paint scheme as the shortline consist enters Norfolk Southern’s Harrisburg Line at Sinking Spring, Penn.
• Crossing the muddy Chemung River in Elmira, N.Y., Amtrak engine 108 leads special train 926 (Norfolk Southern number 099-24) eastbound on the Norfolk Southern’s Southern Tier Line.
• Amtrak’s Midwest Service Saluki train is passing through Neoga, Ill. on August 2, led by engine 4608, a Siemens-built Charger SC-44, hauling a consist of Superliner cars.
• Union Pacific tested Electro-Motive Diesel’s (EMD) SD70ACe locomotives on the railroad’s former Rio Grande Moffat Tunnel Subdivision west of Denver, Colo. on August 26, 2013.
• Union Pacific MDVRO (Denver to Salt Lake City manifest freight) emerges from Tunnel 18, just east of Crescent, Colo., on a sunny afternoon in May 2001.
• On the morning of October 1, 2021, POVA’s Sandpoint turn rolls by milepost 1409 between Laclede and Dover, Idaho on the way to the BNSF interchange at Sandpoint.
• On September 27, 2021, the sky is still leaden with morning clouds as STMA’s Plummer turn rumbles over Pedee Creek trestle at Pedee, Idaho.
BurkholderKansas City Southern (KCS) engine 4103 will need all 4,300 hp generated by this EMD SD70Ace to haul this loaded grain train up the grade approaching Rich Mountain, Ark., and on the continuing climb through the Ozark Mountains heading for Mexico.
• A KCS inspection special (B-LRKC-03) rolls through DeSoto Parrish, La. just before sunset on May 4, 2021.
• Charging down the line, Steam Railroading Institute’s (SRI) Pere Marquette 1225 Berkshire-type (2-8-4) hauls an evening North Pole Express excursion from Owosso to Ashely, Mi.,
• Locomotive 1225 was built in 1941 by the Lima Locomotive Works for the Pere Marquette Railway and hauled fast freight between cities in the Midwest for a decade. The engine was set aside in 1951, but was saved when a Michigan State University trustee saw its value for engineering students.
Published by Tide-mark Press © 2022
