Locomotives and railroads featured in this edition include:
≈ Boston and Maine 3809, an E-7A, built by EMD in 1946, is passing under a covered bridge at Troy, NY on January 5, 1958. This was Train #67, a Sunday-only train, The Greylock. Arrival time per the timetable was 1:25 PM, but 3809 was running a little late. The photographer noted the time he took the slide as 1:59 PM. The covered bridge was built in 1885. An act of arson served as its demise in 1963.
≈ The Chicago and Illinois Midland Railway was primarily a coal hauler operating 121 miles between Peoria and Taylorville, Illinois. Rather than buying pricy new diesels, the Midland purchased used steam engines from other railroads that were in the process of dieselizing. Engine 705, seen here at Springfield, IL on July 3, 1954, was one of nine purchased from the Atlantic Coast Line. It was a 2-10-2, built in 1926 by Baldwin Locomotive Works. The Midland renumbered it 755 and placed it in service in November 1953. It would be set aside and scrapped in December 1955.
≈ The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad was a Midwestern line that operated between Mapleton, IL (west of Peoria) and Logansport, IN. EMD had a four-unit demonstrator set of F3’s, an A-B-B-A. In 1946, the TP&W bought half of the set, an F3A and an F3B. They then installed a cab on the B unit. This gave them more operating flexibility. Here is the 100, the original F3A, on Train #21, a westbound freight, stopped for switching at Fairbury, IL on February 23, 1955. This image was taken by TP&W dispatcher Monty Powell.
≈ It is 1:00 PM on May 21, 1958 and Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville engine 82-A is pulling out of La Salle Street Station, Chicago, IL with Train #5, The Thoroughbred. It is on its way to Louisville, KY. Engine 82-A is an F-3A, purchased from EMD in 1947. Monon painted its passenger F-Units in Indiana University red and white colors; freight F-Units were painted in Purdue University black and gold. Monon was one of the first large railroads to eliminate steam power, doing so by 1949. By 1967, The Thoroughbred was the last Monon passenger train in service, but on September 29, 1967 all passenger service on the Monon ended.
≈ Here is a very rarely photographed locomotive: “Jawn Henry.” It is Norfolk and Western 2300, a steam turbine electric coal burner built by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton in 1954. It was a monster, weighing in ready to roll at 1,182,000 pounds. 2300 went into service in June 1954. It was experimental, and various problems developed. It was a one-of-a-kind locomotive, requiring special handling. After experimenting with it in several applications, 2300 was assigned as a rear-end helper on coal trains running eastbound up the Blue Ridge grade. When the turbine failed on November 30, 1957, the engine was doomed. It was retired a few weeks later.
≈ Lehigh Valley 606 (two Alco PA-1’s) are on Train #29, the John Wilkes making a station stop at Mauch Chunk, PA (The town was renamed in 1954 after Olympic athlete Jim Thorpe, who is buried there.) Lehigh Valley purchased 14 of these PA-1’s in 1948, but the line’s passenger service was poorly patronized. The flagship train, the Black Diamond made its last run on May 11, 1959. On February 3, 1961, the John Wilkes made its last run, and the next day the Maple Leaf was removed from service. The PA’s were transferred to freight service, a role for which they were poorly suited. During the next four years, all of them were removed from the roster; 606, the last of these locomotives still in service, was traded to Alco for new power.
≈ Grand Trunk Western 3752, a Class S-3-c stoker-equipped Mikado (2-8-2) built by the American Locomotive Company in 1924, is on an empty gravel train (the Oxford stone train) at Oxford, MI, location of the largest gravel pit in the world. The Mikados worked as all-purpose locomotives for the Grand Trunk Western, even running in passenger train service. 3752 would be removed from service in 1960 and was scrapped in June 1961.
≈ Atlantic Coast Line 356 (two EMD F-7A’s) are on a freight at the Live Oak, FL, depot in the summer of 1955. These F-7A’s were delivered to the ACL in February of 1949 in their distinctive (and expensive to maintain) silver and purple paint scheme. The president of ACL, McDowell Davis, liked the colors and their artful application on the line’s diesels. He retired in 1957 and as soon as he did, the much more conservative black with yellow striping began to show up with great regularity.
≈ Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 9915-A and an identical unit are about twenty minutes and ten miles south of Minneapolis, MN, with Train #22, the Morning Zephyr on September 28, 1957. The two sleek EMD E-5A’s are leading their train out of St. Paul, MN, en route to an on-time arrival at Chicago Union Station at 2:15 PM.
≈ On October 13, 1996, Chicago and North Western 8605 and 8604, both General Electric Model C44-8W’s, part of a 130-unit order delivered in 1993, are on the approach to Dale, WY with an empty soda ash hopper train returning to the Green River, WY area. All C&NW stock was acquired by the Union Pacific on April 27, 1995; merger followed on June 28, 1995. Regardless of mergers, those three-year-old locomotives look great in this setting.
≈ Union Pacific 5526, a Santa Fe Type 2-10-2, is on the point of a heavy westbound manifest freight helping Union Pacific 3951 Challenger, a 4-6-6-4 built by the American Locomotive Company in 1942. They are passing Otto, WY, a siding about 16 miles west of Cheyenne.
≈ Great Northern 436 is leading a freight at Newport, WA on December 10, 1953. 436 was a four-unit, 6,000-horsepower Model F3A-F3B-F3B-F3A set purchased in September 1948. All were traded in to EMD in 1967 and 1968.
More Railroading Titles
Tide-mark publishes a notable group of train calendars featuring classic images of steam locomotives and great named trains of railroads across the United States. Calendar titles for 2025 include: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Denver Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado Narrow Gauge, Gulf Mobile & Ohio, Illinois Central, Milwaukee Road, New York Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, Rock Island, Santa Fe Railway, the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific. Classic trains are also pictured in Great Trains featuring paintings by artist Gil Bennett and in Howard Fogg’s Trains. Contemporary trains are the focus of the Railroading! calendar that offers 24 spectacular full-color images of trains from across North America. Tide-mark also publishes the Streetcars and Trolleys calendar with classic images from a wide range of cities in the U.S., as well as the new San Francisco Cable Cars title.
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