A little past 1 p.m. on a perfect May Day, 1965, the Rocky Mountain Rocket turns its back on the Rockies and heads east out of Denver behind two 2250-hp E8As. Though there are only five cars in the consist, this train still offers the traveler full dining service and choice of coach or sleeper accommodations. In a little over an hour and a half, #8 will pause at Limon out on the eastern plains to hook up with the Colorado Springs section. And by tomorrow morning, when it pulls into it Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station, the consist will have expanded to a respectable 16 cars.
What did passenger trains look like before Amtrak in America, and Via Rail in Canada? Find out in this album with 2,700+ Historical Photos from early passenger trains of North America from the 1900's up until the early years of Government passenger trains
Photos of North America's favorite First Generation locomotives. EMD, ALCO, Baldwin; essentially anything that represents the OG wide cab diesel locomotive
The Rock Island was an also-ran in the markets it served competing the likes of the Santa Fe Super Chief and Burlington Denver Zephyr, but it did its best to put on a good show.
