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"No, that's impossible" and other myths about railway preservation

Posted 7 days ago by Jim Wrinn

NASHVILLE – Impossible. Never will happen. Can’t be done. American railway preservation has many of those. I hear about them in casual conversation. I read about them online. They are the least hopeful railroads, locomotives, rolling stock, depots, etc., on the earth. Sometimes that assessment is true. Other times, it is for lack of trying. But from time to time someone or some group or organization punches a gaping hole in steely impossible. It makes things happen. It gets the j...

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Sampling Brightline: a trip report

Posted 8 days ago by David Lassen

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — As I begin writing this, I am sitting in an airport terminal notably lacking in sufficient seating for passengers waiting for flights. Before having the good fortune to find this seat — nowhere near my gate, but you can’t have everything — I was herded through slower-than-usual security (truthfully, I don’t really blame the TSA people who aren’t being paid if they’re calling in sick), and had a mediocre, overpriced breakfast. Luck...

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No. 576 and the Shawshank Redemption

Posted 9 days ago by Jim Wrinn

NASHVILLE – There is a scene in my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption, in which escaped prisoner Andy DuFresne (actor Tim Robbins) is smiling broadly as he drives a convertible along gorgeous cliffs overlooking a spectacular seashore. Narrator Morgan Freeman describes the moment like this: “Andy Dufresne, headed for the Pacific.” If you’ve seen the movie, you know what sort of hell DuFresne has endured as a wrongly imprisoned man, and how he outwitted his captors ...

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20 questions for retiring Colorado Railroad Museum Executive Director Don Tallman

Posted 19 days ago by Jim Wrinn

I first met Don Tallman in November 2006 at the annual meeting of what we now know as the Heritage Rail Alliance, the industry trade group for tourist railroads and museums. As is my normal stance at these meetings, I try to meet as many new people as possible, and Don’s was a face that I didn’t recognize when I boarded a bus for a field trip. I sat down next to him, and a conversation quickly began. As it turned out, Don knew little about railroads or railroad history, but he ha...

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Railway preservation’s end of the year dollars and sense

Posted 26 days ago by Jim Wrinn

Between now and next Monday, I want to make modest financial contributions to two railway preservation groups that excite me with the work they’re doing. I suspect many of you are thinking about doing the same thing. I’d rather the money be spent on staybolts, boiler tubes, and paint than go to the taxman, right? Most of you have heard my sermon on regular giving to railway preservation so if you already know what I’m about to say on that topic, skip to the next paragrap...

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A tribute to a great railroad photographer

Posted one month ago by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak

Associate Editor David Lassen walked into my office in October and said he was talking with Editor Jim Wrinn and suggested we do an all John Gruber gallery. I couldn’t have agreed more. So I held what I had planned for the February 2019 issue and quickly dove into indexes and bound volumes to immerse myself in nearly 60 years of a very prolific photographer. How do you choose only a handful of photos to honor this man who seemed to only know how to capture great imagery? Gruber, founder...

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Waiting in traffic: Good for the economy

Posted one month ago by Brian Schmidt

Driving to the office on Wednesday morning I was stopped by a northbound Canadian National train in Waukesha. Traffic was backed up in both directions, and through an intersection, for quite a while as what seemed like an endless stream of empty centerbeam flatcars rolled by. But that's a good sign, you see. Long strings of empty centerbeams moving north to Canada means construction in the U.S. is ongoing and investment is being made. When those empty moves – and the carloads that prece...

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A look ahead at steam in 2019

Posted one month ago by Jim Wrinn

It’s starting to be the time of the year when we reflect on the year past and what went well and what went off the tracks. For the railway preservation community, there were many strides forward. My friend Aaron Isaacs, the editor online magazine for the industry trade group Heritage Rail Alliance, reminds me that more than 60 projects were completed in the tourist railroad and railway museum field. That’s a lot of new metal, new paint, a lot of muscle, and a lot of bucks. The...

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Why Norfolk Southern is moving its headquarters move to Atlanta

Posted one month ago by Jim Wrinn

Back in 2013, I penned a two-page feature for Trains called “How cool is your railroad?” We prepared a chart that analyzed various aspects of the corporate makeup, posture, and outward presentation of the seven big U.S. freight carriers. Among the topics we reviewed was headquarters city. For Norfolk Southern, of its world headquarters I wrote this: “Possibly the deadest downtown of any railroad HQ. If Norfolk wasn’t in the company name and Lambert’s Point wasn&rsqu...

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20 questions for John Garner at Western Maryland Scenic Railroad about the restoration of 2-6-6-2 No. 1309

Posted one month ago by Jim Wrinn

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad’s restoration of 2-6-6-2 No. 1309, the last steam locomotive Baldwin produced for domestic service in 1949, has been an on-going struggle for four years since its acquisition from the B&O Railroad Museum. The railroad and the project have faced significant challenges, including landslides, funding, employee theft of unique parts, and others. In the last six months, the project surged ahead with a new burst of funding that produced a steam test of the ...

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Memories from George H.W. Bush's 1992 presidential campaign train

Posted one month ago by Jim Wrinn

The death of President George H.W. Bush and the planned funeral train for him on Thursday brought back memories of a day some 26 years ago, when Bush and railroading were together, and I was a witness to it. Oct. 21, 1992 was not an ordinary day at work for me. I was a newspaper reporter for the Charlotte Observer’s bureau in Concord, N.C. But instead of calling on residents of Cabarrus County, N.C., for their news, I was standing in a bored and restless crowd along a double track main ...

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Golden spike, photos from the transcontinental railroad, create a powerhouse exhibit

Posted one month ago by Jim Wrinn

OMAHA, Neb. – It’s common knowledge that on May 10, 1869, Central Pacific and Union Pacific locomotives and their entourages met at Promontory Summit, Utah, where a ceremonial golden spike was gently tapped into a laurel tie to commemorate the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. The spike would become an iconic emblem marking the completion of this monumental task. It’s also widely known that a photographer assembled those present for an image of the two locomot...

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Thoughts on railway preservation: the Heritage Rail Alliance meeting in Santa Fe

Posted 2 months ago by Jim Wrinn

I just returned from Santa Fe, N.M., where the Heritage Rail Alliance meeting concluded. I have attended these meetings regularly since 1997 and as a volunteer at the N.C. Transportation Museum served as one of the hosts of the 2001 meeting of the old Association of Railway Museums and the Tourist Railroad Association Inc., which merged a few years ago to become the Heritage Rail Alliance. We also hosted the 2008 meeting of the tourist group here at Trains magazine in Milwaukee. The tone of the...

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Why we're at the Heritage Rail Alliance meeting learning about tourist railroads and museums

Posted 2 months ago by Jim Wrinn

SANTA FE, N.M. – We’re here in this capital of desert Southwest arts and culture for the annual Heritage Rail Alliance. It’s a meeting that brings together dozens of professionals and volunteers from the tourist railroad and railway museum industries to talk about their common challenges and successes. I expect to see dozens of people, from car hosts to the CEOs of major tourist railroad holding companies. Everyone who cares about the future and well-being of the past is here....

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An overdue visit to a special railroad tunnel that never saw the first train

Posted 2 months ago by Jim Wrinn

Have you ever put off doing something so long that you just didn’t think you’d ever get around to doing it? I had an experience like that late last month when I went home to the Carolinas to see family and friends. This tale involves a partially completed railroad tunnel. All of my life I’d heard the legendary Blue Ridge Railroad, a route between the Atlantic seaboard at Charleston, S.C., through the mountains of South Carolina and Georgia, and onto Knoxville, Tenn., and e...

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The power of first-person storytelling

Posted 2 months ago by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak

I just can’t help but get emotional. I am closing a book. Not The Book. But it’s the end of an era for me. I’ve edited the last chapter of your stories. Your personal stories. With the December 2018 issue of Trains, I have edited my last “In My Own Words” story. [I lovingly refer to it as IMOW (read: eye-mow) in the office, so expect that reporting mark for the duration.] By my best count, you’ve allowed me to help you tell your stories 173 times. I am honor...

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Sending thoughts to heaven while following a Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum excursion

Posted 2 months ago by Jim Wrinn

Mr. Bob Soule Mr. Paul Merriman The Great Roundhouse in the Sky Gentlemen: I’ve long wanted to speak with both of you again since you departed this Earth. But I’ve not felt the urge to contact you so strongly as I have this week. You were both giants in the preservation of steam locomotives, and your creation, Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, has compelled me to write. Last Sunday, I had the good fortune to follow and photograph a TVRM excursion train from Chattanoo...

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I am a gearhead: Silver Creek & Stephenson's Heisler No. 2 confirms it

Posted 3 months ago by Jim Wrinn

I am a gearhead. All locomotives fascinate me. Diesels excite me. Streamlined cab units are especially a favorite. Electric is good. Steam power is truly a passion. Big steam definitely thrills me. But if you asked me what my most personal favorite is, it would be a geared steam locomotive. Give me a Shay, a Heisler, a Climax. Those strange but powerful backwoods locomotives of the late 19th and early 20th century that slaved away in obscurity. They are my best locomotive buddies. Yes, I am a ge...

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“Grandpa” John Gruber had a twinkle in his eye

Posted 3 months ago by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak

John Gruber signs a copy of "Railroaders:Jack Delano's Homefront Photography" at the Chicago History Museum, April 5, 2014. Photo by Angela Pusztai-Pasternak There are folks worthier than me of writing about John Gruber who passed away Oct. 9, 2018. Certainly, the list includes his family, his close friends, railroaders, photographers, business associates, and railfans who admire the books he wrote, the photos he took, all the beautiful work he’d done personally and professionally, es...

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Railroad photography: A death in the family

Posted 3 months ago by Brian Schmidt

I still remember vividly the image of the scrunched cap reflected in the window glass. It seemed an odd inclusion to this young railfan by a magazine called “Trains” that billed itself as “The Leading Magazine of Railroading.” That photo was taken by none other than legendary photography John Gruber, who died this week at age 82. It accompanied his May 1994 feature story “A death in the family” recounting the end of the Green Bay & Western. It wasn&rsquo...

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Thank you, John Gruber, my friend

Posted 3 months ago by Jim Wrinn

I am going to miss John Gruber. The affable photographer, writer, editor, and found of the Center for Railroad Photograph & Art who passed away Tuesday at age 82 gave me many things. As a kid, he showed me Southern Railway No. 4501 in the pages of Trains and in David P. Morgan’s book about that beloved locomotive. And then he showed me the Rio Grande narrow gauge in its final days. And so much more. As an adult, he gave me a good friend in his son, Rich. We both liked...

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