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The legend of ‘Chief Wawatam’

Posted 14 years ago by Andy Cummings

By Andy Cummings, Associate EditorI touched base yesterday with my friend Alex Huff, who recently retired from the railroad industry after a career with Missouri Pacific, Michigan Northern, and Dakota Southern. I wanted to see how he was doing in retirement (fine, thanks), and in the course of conversation, he told me a story that I found fascinating. With his permission, I tell the story in hopes you’ll enjoy it, and perhaps learn something about pre-Staggers railroading. The Chief Wawata...

17

Spotting roundhouses from satellite images

Posted 14 years ago by Kevin P. Keefe

Of all the brilliant time wasters on the Internet, my guiltiest pleasure is Google Earth. That little blue marble just stares at me from my desktop, daring me to dive into another ridiculous journey across time and topography, leading me at helicopter level across old neighborhoods, familiar landscapes, and most often, railroad landmarks. My latest Google Earth habit: roundhouses. When I first started playing with Google Earth a couple of years ago, I zoomed in on my hometown of Niles, M...

1

Live video of President Obama's high speed rail announcement

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Quandt

Tampa TV station, WTSP is offering live video of President Obama's high speed rail announcement. The site also features live updates from the President's visit. According to these updates, the speech is expected to begin at 1:05p Eastern.Also, be sure to visit TrainsMag.com's "High Speed Rail 2010" section for the latest, most comprehensive news and analysis available from the world's leading publication on the rail industry....

2

Strasburg caught hauling freight! Oh my!

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

In choosing pictures for Trains magazine’s April 2010 preservation section, I couldn’t help to select one of Pennsylvania’s Strasburg Rail Road doing something so un-Strasburg like as to shock readers who land on page 87: hauling freight. The Strasburg, of course, is the east’s ever-popular tourist railroad in Lancaster County’s Amish country. Close to 400,000 take the short (4.1 miles between East Strasburg and the run around track at Lehman Place, also known as Paradise) ride, much of it throu...

1

Norfolk Southern in the Carolina Piedmont: A message from the boss and a look inside a yard

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

Sunday was the last day of the annual Railway Passenger Car Alliance meeting in Salisbury, N.C., and Norfolk Southern was in the spotlight. On Saturday night Wick Moorman, NS’s president, chairman, and CEO, became the first sitting railroad chief executive to address the organization. Moorman gave a presentation on his youthful railroad interest in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Miss., then discussed his company's view on high speed rail (bottom line: it's coming, possibly to some NS route...

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A chance sighting of Clinchfield Railroad office car No. 100

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

When I arrived at the Lancaster & Chester Railway in South Carolina today for a field trip that's part of the Railway Passenger Car Alliance meeting, I saw a car whose lines looked oddly familiar to me. Later, at a photo stop at Fort Lawn, S.C., I recognized the tail car after rare mileage trip organizer Bart Jennings prompted me: Clinchfield Railroad office car No. 100. The car was painted all Pullman green and its CRR markings were faded, but visible in the right sunlight. The L&...

2

A mid-winter thaw

Posted 14 years ago by Andy Cummings

Last week, I was reading Slate Magazine’s Moneybox column by Daniel Gross, in which he makes the case that recovery will come sooner and stronger than we expect. Much as I’d like to believe him, I think we all have doubts right now about how long it’ll be before the economy we live on returns to normal. This is certainly true at the railroads, where overall traffic is down more than 20 percent from pre-recession levels. For the first weekend of the new year, I got my first feel for a thaw ...

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Witness to a great train movie production

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

When our new 100 Greatest Train Movies special came out last week, I had to smile when I got to page 39 and reflected on the movie that ranks No. 47 out of 100. That’s Disney’s “Great Locomotive Chase,” and I have first-hand knowledge of it because I grew up listening to my mother tell stories about its filming in my hometown of Franklin, N.C., a few years before I was born. The subject of the 1956 movie is the capture of the Confederate locomotive “The General&rdqu...

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Trains Magazine and Amtrak to hold town hall meeting in March

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

Response to the town hall meeting that Amtrak and Trains are co-sponsoring March 6 in Chicago has been nothing short of excellent. With only a few days since the February 2010 issue to hit mailboxes and the announcement was posted to Trains’ News Wire Monday afternoon, we’ve already pre-registered 102 participants as of today. That’s great news, and it shows that people are definitely interested in this dialogue with CEO Joe Boardman and Amtrak board Chairman Tom Carper.If you’re not familiar wi...

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Rush Loving: What Kind of Owner Will Warren Buffett Be?

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

By Rush Loving--UPDATED-- A lot of people at Burlington Northern Santa Fe are probably wondering what Warren Buffett will do to their company once Berkshire Hathaway completes its purchase in the next few months..Everyone in the railroad industry knows all about predators who come seeking quick profits. They date back to the days of Jim Fisk and Jay Gould. Many people remember those leveraged buy-out artists from Wall Street who were knocking on corporate doors in the 1980s, and more lately some...

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Trains on film: The best of 2009

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

Railroads have a surprising way of sneaking into the popular culture — sometimes in places where we least expect them. What follows is a short list of my favorite railroad “cameo appearances” in movies and TV for 2009. This list is by no means comprehensive, so why not share your favorite “trains on film” moments from 2009 with us? Here are seven to get you started. President Obama’s inauguration train: Millions of Americans watched on Jan. 17, 2009, as a president-elect rode a 10...

1

Happy Holidays from all of us at Trains magazine

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

Dear readers, On behalf of the Trains editorial staff, I’d like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Reflecting on 2009, we’ve enjoyed bringing you the world’s top railroad magazine and web site. This has been a memorable year for us with our two special jumbo issues, the April issue devoted to grain traffic and our October issue about narrow gauge; the addition of Fred Frailey as a monthly columnist; and features, news sections, and departments throughout the year that we hope ed...

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Jim Wrinn's list of “must see” places and “must do” experiences; what’s on yours?

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

Everybody has a life’s “to do” list. Some people have heightened this sense of urgency by calling it their “bucket list” of must-do activities they consider essential before they pass from this earth or “kick the bucket.” I was reminded of this earlier this week when I saw pictures of the tiny two-truck Shay that’s on display at the Allen County (Ohio) Historical Society being lifted by crane from one display site and placed in another. For all of the many years that I’ve been riding behind or a...

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Of politics, education and main line steam

Posted 14 years ago by Steve Glischinski

The recent announcement that Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261 would return to the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wis., after 15 years of pulling excursions got me thinking about the politics behind mainline steam. Politics, you say? You bet. To successfully navigate the treacherous waters of organizing a main line steam excursion in the 21st century, you’d better be a darn good politician. Consider what you're up against: First, unless you have a good relationship with a Class I rai...

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What’s a steam fan to do? Answer: Reflect and look forward

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

This is the time of year when I realize that most of the fireboxes on the nation’s operational steam locomotives have gone cold. For most of the museums and tourist railroads, the engines are back in the shop, the volunteers and professionals in charge of them are tearing engines apart for much needed work, and the prospect of another steam season is months away. It’s also a time when I count the “wins” and “losses” for the year – engines that have come back, and others that left us. It’s also a...

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Rush Loving on Why Buffett Bought BNSF

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

Guest post from Rush LovingTwo weeks ago, when Warren Buffett announced his purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, a number of journalists seemed surprised that anyone would want to buy a railroad. "A railroad might strike many people as a bit old-fashioned-more 19th century than 21st," said The New York Times. Some TV network reporters referred to railroads as if they still were in the 1800s.Nevertheless, they all were quick to explain that Buffett was gambling on the U.S. economy-...

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Chili’s restaurant and high speed rail … who knew?

Posted 14 years ago by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak

So there I am sitting down to dinner last Friday night at my daughter’s favorite dining establishment, Chili’s. Our hostess presented my girl with her menu, which doubles as an activity book. I’m not sure how often Chili’s changes the activity book theme, but this was the first time I saw this one on transportation. Chili’s recurring characters all took charge of a mode of transportation. Hal flies a jet that uses a rocket engine, Sunny drives a solar car, Pepper explores the ocean in a deep-sea...

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Introducing Photo of the Day

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

Railroad photography just keeps getting better. It’s always been great with passionate photographers, great optical equipment, and the most thrilling subject on the planet (in motion, lighting conditions never the same twice, equally fascinating up close or in panorama). But today it just seems that the digital revolution has just made a great art form even better, and Trains is going to showcase more great railroad photography on our Web site. Starting today, our Photo of the Week feature becom...

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Enjoy a free tour of TrainsMag.com, including News Wire, this weekend!

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Quandt

From noon Friday, November 13, through 8 a.m. CST Monday, November 16, all the great features that are available only to registered users or Trains magazine subscribers will be available to everyone, including you. For free! Find out what you've been missing! Check out these exclusive benefits: Trains News Wire — Get caught up on the day's railroading headlines written by Trains staff members, featuring about 30 stories a week! TrainsTube Videos — Watch Trains editors interview indus...

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TRAINS cover breaks new ground

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

by Matt Van Hattem, Senior EditorIf you’ve ever stopped to glance at the cover of a fashion magazine (admit it — we all have), you may also know that the “photo” is often a composite of different pictures of the same model, knit together seamlessly with the magic of photo editing software.At Trains magazine, we usually strive for realism on our covers. That doesn’t mean we won’t, say, remove a patch of dirt from the lead engine’s nose. But to do much more would mar the integrity of the photo and...

2

Goin' to the end of the line

Posted 14 years ago by Andy Cummings

The towns along Minnesota Northern Railroad’s Warroad Subdivision could form the backdrop for Garrison Keillor’s stories, or provide set locations for the Coen Brothers’ movie Fargo. Tall gray grain elevators provide the only vertical relief; each fall, they fill with the bounty of the fields that stretch north into Manitoba, and south until they transition to marshes on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. In summer, Warroad sees its share of visitors in the form of boat-towing Twin Citians who mak...

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A Rare Class-1 Rail CEO Gathering ...

Posted 14 years ago by Bill Withuhn

A rare trio spoke in August before an important annual professional gathering that represents all transport modes: Three leading Class-1 CEOs – BNSF’s Matt Rose, Kansas City Southern’s Mike Haverty, and Norfolk Southern’s Wick Moorman – spoke at a forum called “Balanced Regulation & Freight Railroads" at the 12th Annual Transportation & Infrastructure Summit in Irving, Texas. These annual summits are multi-modal, drawing an audience of transportation decision-makers from ...

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Bad railroad language

Posted 14 years ago by Bill Withuhn

Trains is pleased to welcome Smithsonian Transportation Curator Bill Withuhn to our blogs. Withuhn is well known to Trains readers for his many articles in the magazine and his work in preservation. You can read much more about him and his fascinating career in our November 2009 issue. — Jim Wrinn, Editor ---------- President-elect Barack Obama rode in a "blue caboose" from Philadelphia to Washington before his swearing-in. Well, that was how the Washington Post described it. &nb...

1

Tales of a baby brakie

Posted 14 years ago by Kathi Kube

A couple of months ago, I took — and passed, thank you very much — my rules exam at the Illinois Railway Museum. That's right, I'm now a baby brakeman learning as much as I can about railroading operations with the goal of marking up to conductor and, eventually, engineer. The path here has been logical, at least for me.As an introduction, let me address two questions I'm asked more often than some people wash their cars: Do I really like trains, and how did I get involved in this hobby? Yes, I ...

0

Class I steam is alive and well – on rails other than the main line

Posted 14 years ago by Jim Wrinn

by Jim Wrinn Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Southern, Southern Pacific, Boston & Maine: The illustrious list of Class I railroad steam locomotives that are back in operation or on the way to steaming is impressive; the notion that the only steam in captivity today is about short lines and industrial railroads is far from the truth. But what’s even more remarkable about this list is that this new round of engine restorations isn’t taking place on Class I railroads. Museums and tourist lines are doi...

2

Is the DM&E project dead?

Posted 14 years ago by Andy Cummings

It's a fair question, to be sure. Canadian Pacific's Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern withdrew 19 lawsuits attempting to seize land from Wyoming residents; the land was to be used for a new right-of-way into the Powder River Basin coalfields. I spoke with DM&E spokesman Mike LoVecchio last week about the decision, and he tells me it represents a change of tactic, not an abandonment or even suspension of the project as a whole. Still, CP makes no secret that regulatory and economic factors are...

7

"Julie & Julia:" A chick flick for railfans?

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

by Matt Van Hattem Senior editor So guess where I was on a crystal clear Saturday afternoon while the rest of you were out taking train pictures? At the movies seeing “Julie & Julia.” I’ll admit I was a little reluctant to go, but my moviegoing companion had watched them filming a scene from the window of her New York City apartment, and I used to edit cookbooks so I figured it would be fun. (Everyone laughs at my past career in cookbooks, seeing as I barely know...

3

The perfect morning

Posted 14 years ago by Andy Cummings

My cell phone alarm rang at 3 a.m. mountain daylight time, and I forced myself out of the cheap motel bed I'd spent the night in. By 3:30, myself and a railfan friend of mine were passing through Badlands National Park. There was no chance of finding coffee at this hour of the morning, so the best I could do to wake myself was to open the car windows and feel the chilly breeze brush past my face. The first light of day was just a smudge on the horizon to the northeast. Interstate 90 was empty, s...

1

An effective rail museum on a smaller scale

Posted 14 years ago by Matt Van Hattem

By Matt Van Hattem Senior Editor I’ve just returned from representing Trains magazine at the Galesburg Railroad Days festival. The festival is always held the last weekend in June, and attracts a crowd from all over the central United States. Many Trains readers stopped by our tent (right next to the Amtrak station platform) to say hello. On the first day of the event, I got a chance to walk through the Galesburg Railroad Museum, and came away marveling at how a relativ...

0

Railroad Photography

Posted 14 years ago by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak

Last month, Trains magazine's e-newsletter included a link to an online exclusive about creative railroad photography. [If you don't receive the Trains e-newsletter, click here to sign up.] The article was written by Scott Lothes, project director for The Center for Railroad Photography and Art, based in Madison, Wis. He wrote about what makes a railroad photo creative and how it has changed over the years. This Monday, we have another exclusive article on railroad photography. This time...

The legend of ‘Chief Wawatam’

Spotting roundhouses from satellite images

Live video of President Obama's high speed rail announcement

Strasburg caught hauling freight! Oh my!

Norfolk Southern in the Carolina Piedmont: A message from the boss and a look inside a yard

A chance sighting of Clinchfield Railroad office car No. 100

A mid-winter thaw

Witness to a great train movie production

Trains Magazine and Amtrak to hold town hall meeting in March

Rush Loving: What Kind of Owner Will Warren Buffett Be?

Trains on film: The best of 2009

Happy Holidays from all of us at Trains magazine

Jim Wrinn's list of “must see” places and “must do” experiences; what’s on yours?

Of politics, education and main line steam

What’s a steam fan to do? Answer: Reflect and look forward

Rush Loving on Why Buffett Bought BNSF

Chili’s restaurant and high speed rail … who knew?

Introducing Photo of the Day

Enjoy a free tour of TrainsMag.com, including News Wire, this weekend!

TRAINS cover breaks new ground

Goin' to the end of the line

A Rare Class-1 Rail CEO Gathering ...

Bad railroad language

Tales of a baby brakie

Class I steam is alive and well – on rails other than the main line

Is the DM&E project dead?

"Julie & Julia:" A chick flick for railfans?

The perfect morning

An effective rail museum on a smaller scale

Railroad Photography

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