I Ride The Harlem Line

Tagged: railcar

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Behind the scenes of the Alaska Railroad… Trains Photos

Over the past few weeks we’ve gotten a chance to check out the best that the Alaska Railroad has to offer – from its most attractive scenery to some of its rarer routes, we’ve covered a lot of ground. Part of the awesomeness of the NRHS convention was that we got to see some “behind the scenes” stuff that most rail passengers never get to see. The Alaska Railroad was undoubtedly a generous host, opening not just their rail system to us, but their operations center and even their locomotive shops. I won’t include a whole lot of commentary with...

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The Budd Rail Diesel Car, and more art from Leslie Ragan Trains History Photos

If you’ve been following our little series of posts chock full of lovely Leslie Ragan art in advertisements for the Budd company, you may have noticed a few ads featuring Budd’s RDC – or Rail Diesel Car. Today’s post completes our collection of Ragan ads, and focuses on the RDC. The RDC’s were widely used here and around the world – Australia, Canada, Brazil, and even Saudi Arabia all had RDC’s operating at some point in time. The versatile RDC was an all stainless steel, self propelled railcar that could be operated as a single unit, or multiple cars could...

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Even more Riding in Style on the New York Central – a tour of The Empire State Express Trains Museums History

Imagine the year is 1894. You are about to embark on a journey to Buffalo on the finest railcars of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. Your seat is of the softest plush, the curtains are of silk, and the car’s wood paneling is made of the finest oak and mahogany. At the front of your train is the legendary locomotive 999, the fastest on wheels. Though she once was clocked at speed of 112.5 miles per hour, she’ll likely average around 60 miles per hour on your journey to Buffalo. This is the Empire State Express, and...

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Riding in style on the New York Central and the Boston & Albany Trains History Photos

Several years ago when I visited Japan, I got to ride one of the lovely novelty trains designed by Eiji Mitooka. Though he is more well known for the shinkansen he designed, he did create a few rather unique trains for the Wakayama Electric Railway, which, yes, is the system where a cat is vice-president. One of the trains is, of course, modeled after the cat, and when I reviewed it, I was pretty excited about the library on board. I always thought that a concept like that would never survive in popular use in the United States. It wouldn’t...

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The New York & Harlem Railroad in the 1860’s – Tryon Row Trains History

Early photograph of a New York and Harlem Railroad horsecar. New York & Harlem transfer tokens from the American Numismatic Society. I’m not sure how many of you frequent twitter, but I think it seems to be a running joke that every day there is some sort of “national holiday” that is trending. I’m not exactly sure how things like “National Fried Chicken Day” (July 6th) or “Walk on Stilts Day” (July 27) get declared, but people on twitter totally love this crap. Manhattan, not wanting to miss out on the action of remarkably stupid “holidays,” even declared a “Justin...

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Weekly News Roundup, 1/28 Trains Videos

It has been brought to my attention that I’ve neglected to post news roundups for the past few weeks. Not too many spectacular things have occurred over the past few weeks, but here are a few of the noteworthy stories: Metro-North Passenger Pledge On our 12/31 news roundup, I mentioned the Metro-North passenger pledge, and how it was accepted by the Connecticut Commuter Council. Since that time, it has been officially “unveiled” by Metro-North. It has been quite the topic of conversation by numerous news outlets in both Connecticut and New York. Commentary has ranged from utterly pointless comments about...

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