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Historic Signals Still Standing

Posted one month ago by George Hamlin

Two features of modern life in the railroad world are change, and loss. One of the more visible indications of this can be viewed publicly in the form of lineside signals. Of course, it’s necessary to admit at the start that the advent of signals was itself a form of change, although since they had positive features, particularly with regard to safety, they generally were welcomed. Maybe somewhere a hundred-plus years ago somebody complained about how they were ruining...

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Motive Power Trends, and Oddities

Posted 2 months ago by George Hamlin

First, I’m glad that I was able to make the shot shown above, and that it now has been digitized and can be shared widely. It’s clearly from a now-distant era, where operating practices were noticeably different; it also represents something unusual at the time, but more about that later. Re operating practices, those who have read TRAINS magazine for some time, as well as others that have seen this material via perusing back issues of the magazine, may recall ...

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Pre-Retirement Gig

Posted 4 months ago by George Hamlin

To begin with the obvious, this is Penn Central lightweight coach 2151 in the consist of PC train 1229, a commuter run into New York City’s Grand Central Terminal seen during its stop at Mamaroneck, New York on April 20, 1973. By then, it was a veteran of more than thirty years of service, having been built as New York Central 2663 by American Car & Foundry as part of an order delivered between November 1941 and January 1942. This group was part of a larger overall order for...

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Safety Devices

Posted 4 months ago by George Hamlin

Not surprisingly, since they are an endeavor conducted by human beings, railroads cannot yet be considered as “perfectly safe” operations. An old industry saw is that a railroad’s book of rules is “written in blood”, and unfortunately, it continues to be a work in progress in many instances. Frustratingly, this isn’t for lack of trying, training, investing and disciplining. A look at a place that has become familiar to me provides significant ev...

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The Names They are a Changin'

Posted 5 months ago by George Hamlin

What we now know as “intermodal” was termed “piggyback”, or TOFC (Trailer on Flat Car) during the 1960s, since the vast majority of this type of service did consist of trailers on flat cars. There was modest experimentation with containers, including New York Central’s “Flexi-Van” service, where containers were transferred off and on to over-the-road chassis for performing the non-rail portions of their journeys. The Southern Railway also exper...

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The Shot that you Didn't Plan to Take

Posted 7 months ago by George Hamlin

When there’s even a modest amount of time to plan the shot you’re going to take of a train at a familiar location, it’s generally easy to narrow the possibilities down fairly quickly: where to stand; what focal length lens to use; what to include in the frame; and probably the most important, what the light will let you do. It probably won’t surprise most readers that I’ve taken a lot photos in, and nearby, Boyce, Virginia, in the northern portion of Virgin...

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"No More Than Four"

Posted 8 months ago by George Hamlin

If you’re interested in railroad safety, or have looked at an employee timetable or two, you’re probably familiar with this phrase. It refers to the speed, in miles per hour, that should not be exceeded when coupling equipment together. I suspect that occupied passenger trains would benefit from something even lower, but as a general rule, if four miles per hour isn’t exceeded when coupling, the maneuver can be accomplished safely, without damage to the equipmen...

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A Wide Variety of Equipment

Posted 9 months ago by George Hamlin

As of the Spring of 1966, the New York Central’s Twentieth Century Limited seemed to be in reasonable shape, often running with fourteen or more cars on its daily travels on the New York City-Chicago route in both directions. This particular westbound trip, at Oscawana, New York, is down to eleven cars, however, likely due to its departure on May 30th, the Memorial Day holiday. By this time in the train’s storied existence, while the glamor days of all-Pullman/First Class ...

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Rods and Rails

Posted 10 months ago by George Hamlin

Once, both were essentially ubiquitous in North American railroading. More often than not, the rails were alone, but at virtually any point on multiple-track mainlines where there was a need for trains to change tracks, as well as entrances to yards, you’d find both together. When I was a young/budding railfan, and had begun to read TRAINS magazine on a monthly basis, there was a fairly steep learning curve vis-à-vis what all the lineside infrastructure both was and what ...

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Implications of Destiny

Posted 11 months ago by George Hamlin

As of this writing, TRAINS, in its June 2023 issue, has appropriately re-published what many regard as one of the redoubtable David P. Morgan’s finest works, The Mohawk That Refused to Abdicate and Other Tales. This originally appeared in the magazine’s September 1956 issue. It was reprised in hardcover form In Kalmbach’s 1975 book of the same title. Rather than summarizing and/or describing the article here, I urge you to peruse it for yourself, since it ...

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