In 1966, there were only two ways into remote Rock Creek Canyon, between Crater and Volcano on Rio Grande’s Craig Branch in northwestern Colorado. One was to hike along the track from the neares... (more)

Rushing eastward across the Chihuahuan Desert near Van Horn, Texas, May 13, 1973, Missouri Pacific GP35 615 is 120 miles out of El Paso and still some 350 miles from its Fort Worth terminal. Techn... (more)

In its day, Train 8, the Rocky Mountain Rocket, was a class operation, not as fast as its Union Pacific and Burlington competitors but a luxurious and comfortable. ride from Denver to Chicago. But... (more)

Since the Depression year of 1930, Train 17-18, the Portland Rose, has been one of Union Pacific’s classier operations, even boasting for a time its own individual china pattern (depicting, natu... (more)

Union Pacific was an early customer for General Electric’s new U25B line of 2,500-hp diesels, acquiring 16 of the units including the four demonstrators starting in 1961. Eleven had short high h... (more)

Union Pacific, which usually bought its diesels by the hundreds, approached EMD’s new 3,600-hp SD45 cautiously, waiting two years after the model’s 1966 debut, then acquiring only 50. Its inst... (more)

On June 27, 1965 nothing along Colorado’s Joint Line is as it should be. Ten days after massive floods shut down almost all rail traffic into and out of Denver, trains are just starting to move ... (more)

Starting in 1969, Santa Fe bought twenty GE U23C’s for service on unit sulfur trains in Texas, where their hefty pulling power could be put to good use. But by May, 1973, when the 7904 and three... (more)

Its once-shiny nose blasted by Texas sun and grit, Missouri Pacific 803 and two other F7’s idle alongside the engine house at Fort Worth’s Lancaster Yard, waiting for their next assignment, pr... (more)

History passed this way: Near tiny Romeroville, New Mexico, where wagon trains bound for Santa Fe once made their way, Santa Fe Train 23, the Grand Canyon, on July 27, 1967 begins the climb to Glo... (more)

At a time when more prosperous roads are side-lining first-generation diesels in favor of more modern power, a foursome of aging Missouri Pacific geeps led by GP9 1809 crosses the Trinity River Br... (more)

In the days before it became a conveyor belt for Powder River Basin coal, the Joint Line offered drama and variety. Here on April 9, 1966, Denver & Rio Grande Western 5313, one of ten SD9’s on t... (more)

From 1960 to 1963, Missouri Pacific and subsidiary Texas & Pacific purchased 151 GP18s, more than all other railroads combined. Last of the first-generation geeps, the 1800-hp units arrived in tim... (more)

Head-end business is the lubrication that keep the wheels turning on Santa Fe’s train 23, the Grand Canyon, crossing the Cimarron River at the southern edge of Springer, New Mexico, on July 27, ... (more)

A set of SD24’s led by 949 makes its way past one of the most famous locations in railroading, the 3829-foot Summit of Cajon Pass, before dropping down the 3 percent grade to the LA Basin on Sep... (more)