Previews
Previews from the pages of the all new Railroads Illustrated Annual! Get inspired by 100 pages of creative railroad photography from yesterday and today.
October 10, 2016
Western Canada Odyssey
Following a frigid and snowy winter in Northern Virginia, my wife Teresa and I decided to take a much-needed vacation in May 2015 to an intriguing destination to enjoy some spectacular scenery, wildlife viewing, and of course, lots of rail photography. After exploring several options, we decided to head to western Canada, taking VIA Rail’s outstanding Canadian from Toronto.
September 25, 2016
Northern Alco Adventure
In 2001 Cartier had ordered 12 new General Electric AC4400CW locomotives for delivery the following spring. I elected to make the pilgrimage to remote northeastern Canada to shoot the mining firm’s 21 large six-axle Montreal Locomotive Works M636 models, three Alco C636 units, and a lone C630.
August 29, 2016
Riding Mixed Trains in the Southwest
What does the phrase “mixed train” bring to mind? Perhaps a small locomotive, a few boxcars, and an old wooden coach? In the 1960s and 1970s, I rode some mixed trains that did not quite fit that image.
February 25, 2016
CSX Peninsula Subdivision
Change is present in every facet of our lives; it is inevitable. When I received new assignment at Langley AFB in Hampton, Va., it gave me the chance to discover CSX’s Peninsula Subdivision, its coal heritage, and some changes the railroad endured itself. From a native Westerner, I found what was most impressive of all was the subdivision’s coal prowess. That prowess dates back to the railway’s inception nearly 134 years ago.
January 11, 2016
Southern Ontario’s F-Unit Revival
In 2012, news quickly spread that Ontario Southland Railway had picked up a former VIA Rail FP9 and planned to put it in service. As if the news couldn’t get any better, word came a year later that another pair of long-retired FP9s had arrived on the property. OSR’s shops have done a lot of painstaking work to get the “three amigos” operational again, including searching for many hard-to-locate parts.
October 30, 2015
Seaboard System: Not a Temporary Railroad
My discontent with Seaboard System came from the fact it erased some familiar railroad names that had been a part of my younger life, particularly Louisville & Nashville and the Clinchfield…
October 30, 2015
Buckeye State Tunnel Motors
Ohio is also home to five short line/regional railroad companies that operate a locomotive of the type popularly known as “tunnel motors.” EMD modified the cooling systems of its popular SD45–2s and SD40-2s for better engine cooling in tunnels where hot exhaust fumes linger near the tunnel’s ceiling…
October 30, 2015
Romancing the Rathole
I first visited these rails in the spring of 1991 as part of a railfan group’s day trip. I was immediately struck by the magnificence of the massive cuts, bisected and traversed by impossibly tall bridges that carried backwoods country roads across them…
October 30, 2015
Early BNSF
In May 1996, BNSF painted SD60M 9297 in a bimodal experimental paint configuration, where the schemes were different on either side of the engine. The purpose of this painting was to gather feedback from employees and perhaps shareholders as well as management on BNSF’s new but formative corporate image…
