Big Mess

Railroading has changed a lot since I took this photo of a massive coal train derailment on the shared BN/CN route through Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver.

Built ... (more)

Throwin' A Switch. The SD40T-2 #6002 was the first six axle power on the L&C.

It is September 1981 and the local section crew is assisting the crew of Train UT-52 with the brewery switch on Schuyler Street in Utica, NY. This is on the ex-Erie Lackawanna, a year before the N... (more)

The snow is falling fast as a BNSF crewman gets out to throw a switch in the BNSF North Yard in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The sounds of GE prime movers echoes off the walls within Big Hormady Cut as the Cowan pusher shoves heavy mixed freight train Q580 up the nearly three percent grade at Tantallon. Big Hormady Cut ... (more)

A member of the team that is restoring Santa Fe 2926 climbs out of the firebox of the big Northern. More information about the restoration of the locomotive can be found at their website: www.nms... (more)

Back when I started for CN in 2004, the locals between Waterloo and Fort Dodge would meet mid-day around the Webster City/Williams area and swap trains. The jobs this day meet here at Webster City... (more)

GP38-2 7530, GP40-2(W) 9537 and GP38-2 7513 head south on the Camrose Sub as they make their way to Rio Tinto Alcan’s Strathcona Works in east Edmonton.

Following a day of work replacing ties in Argentine Yard, an MW flagman walks back towards his "buggy", having removed the derail protecting the rest of the MW crew, as an SD40-2 waits t... (more)

Traditional railroading was on display on the Coos Bay Railroad as centerbeam lumber cars are picked up and set out at the lumber mill in rural Oregon, as a switchman rides the rear of a cut of em... (more)

A Wisconsin Central welder has just lit off a thermite weld pot on the WC main line at Duplainville, Wisconsin, on March 23, 1996. A one-time-use form is attached to the rails surrounding the join... (more)

Volunteers are hard at work removing Milwaukee Road 261's staybolts as they perform heavy work for the locomotive to be ready for the 2021 season.

From inside the warm and cozy Burnham Tower, a Penn Central passenger train is seen passing by on a cold Chicagoland evening. Penn Central would outlast the tower which burned down in January 197... (more)

The conductor on Kopper Glo mine run 787 steps off the train before a cut of empties is shoved through the loadout before being filled with black diamonds.