The Pennsylvania Railroad, legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia. It was named for the commonwealth in which it was established. At its peak in 1882, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest railroad, the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world.
The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midwest, along with the intermediate cities of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Rochester and Syracuse. New York Central was headquartered in New York City's New York Central Building, adjacent to its largest station, Grand Central Terminal.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-2 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This type of steam locomotive is commonly known as the Mountain type, though the New York Central Railroad used the name Mohawk for their 4-8-2s.
The New York Central Railroad (NYC) called the 4-8-2 type of steam locomotive the Mohawk type. It was known as the Mountain type on other roads, but the New York Central did not see the name as fitting on its famous Water Level Route. Instead, it picked the name of one of those rivers its rails followed, the Mohawk River, to name its newest type of locomotive. Despite the more common name, the 4-8-2 was actually suited in many ways more to flatland running than slow mountain slogging, with its 4-wheel leading truck for stability at speed. However, the L1s and L2s were unstable at higher speeds due to the lack of effective cross-balancing, making the 4-wheel leading truck simply a better distributor of the locomotives weight; the L1s and L2s were consequently limited to 60 mph (97 km/h), though this issue was resolved for the L3s and L4s using data gathered from two experimental L-2s.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 4-8-4 represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles and four trailing wheels on two axles. The type was first used by the Northern Pacific Railway, and initially named the Northern Pacific, but railfans and railroad employees have shortened the name since its introduction. It is most-commonly known as a Northern.
The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and also in Texas through subsidiaries Colorado and Southern Railway, Fort Worth and Denver Railway, and Burlington-Rock Island Railroad. Its primary connections included Chicago, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver. Because of this extensive trackage in the midwest and mountain states, the railroad used the advertising slogans "Everywhere West", "Way of the Zephyrs", and "The Way West".
The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the California State Parks system that interprets the role of railroads in the West. It is located in Old Sacramento State Historic Park at 111 I Street, Sacramento, California.
Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-8-0 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. In the United States and elsewhere, this wheel arrangement is commonly known as a Consolidation, after the Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad’s Consolidation, the name of the first 2-8-0.
The EMD E8 is a 2,250-horsepower (1,678 kW), A1A-A1A passenger-train locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division (EMD) of La Grange, Illinois. A total of 450 cab versions, or E8As, were built from August 1949 to January 1954, 447 for the U.S. and 3 for Canada. 46 E8Bs were built from December 1949 to January 1954, all for the U.S. The 2,250 hp came from two 12 cylinder model 567B engines, each driving a generator to power the two traction motors on one truck. The E8 was the ninth model in the line of passenger diesels of similar design known as EMD E-units. Starting in September 1953, a total of 21 E8As were built which used either the 567BC or 567C engines.
A camelback locomotive is a type of steam locomotive with the driving cab placed in the middle, astride the boiler. Camelbacks were fitted with wide fireboxes which would have severely restricted driver visibility from the normal cab location at the rear.
The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, commonly known as the "Frisco", was a railroad that operated in the Midwest and South Central United States from 1876 to November 21, 1980. At the end of 1970, it operated 4,547 miles (7,318 km) of road on 6,574 miles (10,580 km) of track, not including subsidiaries Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway and the Alabama, Tennessee and Northern Railroad; that year, it reported 12,795 million ton-miles of revenue freight and no passengers. It was purchased and absorbed into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1980. Despite its name, it never came close to San Francisco.
The New York Central Railroad's Niagara was a class of 27 4-8-4 steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company for the New York Central Railroad. Like many railroads that adopted different names for their 4-8-4s rather than “Northerns”, the New York Central named them “Niagaras”, after the Niagara River and Falls. It is considered as one of the most efficient 4-8-4 locomotives ever built.
TheNational Museum of Transportation (TNMOT) is a private, 42-acre transportation museum in the Kirkwood suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1944, it restores, preserves, and displays a wide variety of vehicles spanning 15 decades of American history: cars, boats, aircraft, and in particular, locomotives and railroad equipment from around the United States. The museum is also home to a research library of transportation-related memorabilia and documents.
The National New York Central Railroad Museum is a railroad museum located in Elkhart, Indiana dedicated to the preservation of the New York Central Railroad (NYC).
St. Louis–San Francisco Railway 1522 is a two-cylinder, simple class T-54 4-8-2 "Mountain" type steam locomotive built in 1926 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway (SLSF), also known as the "Frisco". It was retired by the Frisco in 1951 and in May 1959 donated to the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri, where it is currently on display. It was restored to operating condition in the spring of 1988 and operated in excursion service until the fall of 2002 when it was placed back into retirement at the museum.
New York Central 3001 is a 4-8-2 "Mohawk" (Mountain)-type steam locomotive built in 1940 by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) for the New York Central Railroad. Normally known as "Mountain" types, New York Central 4-8-2 steam locomotives were dubbed "Mohawk" types after the Mohawk River, which the New York Central followed. Built for dual service work, the 3001 was used heavily for freight and passenger trains until being retired in 1957. The locomotive is currently on static display at the National New York Central Railroad Museum in Elkhart, Indiana. It is currently the largest modern New York Central steam locomotive still in existence and is one of two surviving New York Central Mohawks; the other, No. 2933, which was currently on display at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri.
Pennsylvania Railroad 6755 is a 4-8-2 "Mountain" type steam locomotive built in 1930 for the Pennsylvania Railroad by the railroad's own Altoona Works as a member of the M1b locomotive class for mainline freight service. Retired from commercial service in 1957, the locomotive was preserved by the Pennsylvania Railroad and was placed on display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. The 6755 is the only M1 class locomotive to have survived into preservation.
The history of the Union Pacific Railroad stretches from 1862 to the present. For operations of the current railroad, see Union Pacific Railroad; for the holding company that owns the current railroad, see Union Pacific Corporation.
The Southern California Railway Museum, formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving to the former Pinacate Station as the "Orange Empire Trolley Museum" in 1958. It was renamed "Orange Empire Railway Museum" in 1975 after merging with a museum then known as the California Southern Railroad Museum, and adopted its current name in 2019. The museum also operates a heritage railroad on the museum grounds.
St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway #5 is a 2-4-2 "Columbian" type steam locomotive. It was originally built by H.K. Porter, Inc. in 1946 as a saddle tank engine for the Central Illinois Public Service Company. In 1963, the locomotive was donated to the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin as a static display piece. In 1971, #5 was sold to the Crab Orchard and Egyptian Railway to be restored to operating condition, and #5 began pulling passenger excursions on the Crab Orchard and Egyptian's track line, as well as occasional freight runs. During this career, the locomotive was converted to a tender locomotive, and the saddle tank over the boiler was presumably scrapped. In 1985, #5 was sold again to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway, who one year later began using the locomotive to run tourist trips in Missouri. This career lasted until 1999. Presently, the #5 is out of service, waiting for an overhaul to be completed.
