Statesville was a great spot to fan in the 1970s with good traffic that really moved, even though the plant was not exactly cutting-edge. Here is proof as a crew member runs ahead to line the way... (more)

A coal train cools its heels as the Floridian pulls away from Union Station.

L&N diesels await the call on a hazy summer afternoon in Nashville.

A pair of SD40-2s help with a Chattanooga-bound coal train. Up front are a pair of SD35s and an SD24.

SD35s team with an SD24 to lead coal out of Knoxville and toward Chattanooga. Back in the train an RC car transmits the engineer's every whim to a pair of SD40-2s.

A storm in the mid-1990s caused enough damage to the former Central of Georgia main between Birmingham and Columbus, GA to require reroutes via Atlanta. When repairs were finished, NS decided to ... (more)

UP recently completed a signal upgrade on the Van Buren sub that my un-scientific observations tell me has really improved ops through this former bottleneck. They seem to be fiddling with power ... (more)

To deal with a late-1970s power crunch, L&N leased a big group of CN GPs and SD40s. This visitor to Music City is fronting a coal train.

This Hamlet-NOLA train ran with SP power for years - mostly high-hp B-Bs - but by 1999, UP diesels were showing up more and more.

If memory serves, the turn between Eufaula and Ozark was down to three days a week by 1975, but I cannot remember if it was a roundtrip on M-W-F, or wb to Ozark on M-W-F, and eb back to Eufaula on... (more)

Back in the days when LR&W maintained a MOW base in tiny Roland, the return leg of the turn to North Little Rock appears in the gap between two old boxcars in mw service. That crew member is taki... (more)

A grubby coal service GE slips between clean, shiny local power in UP's Russellville yard. The number of local units fluctuates, but on this day there were six diesels, most in fresh paint. They... (more)

Geeps await the next call to duty in UP's little Russellville yard. That's the main running through the middle of the flock. Seems to me it would be unnerving to blow between the sitting locos a... (more)

A trio of C-Cs - including a Family Lines U30C, L&N SD35 and CN SD40 - heads through Hopkinsville on their way to a rendezvous with a coal train.

Georgia Railroad 1025 switches along North Court Street in the Western Railway of Alabama's yard.