Extra Board
Welcome to Railfan & Railroad Extra Board, a monthly exploration of the passion for trains from many perspectives. Extra Board welcomes your submissions. We’re looking for about 1500 words accompanied by two or three photos. Each photo should be no smaller than 14 inches (or 1024 pixels) across at 72 dpi (no verticals, please). Brief caption information must accompany each photo. Please send your inquiries to the Webmaster for consideration.
October 18, 2019
Santa Fe on the Bay
As freight traffic moved away from the city in the 1970s and gentrification took over downtown in the 1980s, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe’s base at China Basin remained the sole holdout of a once busy freight handling operation.
September 18, 2019
Anthracite Country Alcos
Reading Company had a wide variety of locomotives from Alco, rostering 118 units of nine different models. These locomotives were purchased between 1926 and 1967, and ranged in size from 300 to 3,000 hp.
August 21, 2019
Covered Wagons to the Future: FL9s in Connecticut
We knew it was coming to an end; we just didn’t know how quickly. A sense of urgency accompanied each trip to New Haven territory. Every frame fired off felt like a small victory. The anachronism was surreal, these ancient covered wagons following a path to the future.
July 19, 2019
How The West Was Done: Part 2
Mike Schafer concludes the tale of his epic July 1969 exploration across the American West with future Railfan & Railroad founding editor Jim Boyd.
July 19, 2019
Rumford Branch Revival
Now operated by Pan Am Railways, the fortunes of the old Maine Central Railroad have always been tied to the paper production industry.
June 18, 2019
Big Boy Returns
Union Pacific did the impossible when it pulled Big Boy 4-8-8-4 no. 4014 from a museum display in 2014 and embarked on an ambitious five year rebuild and restoration to return the largest operating steam locomotive in the world.
June 3, 2019
My Time in Attica
In June 1989, I made the first of what became yearly pilgrimages to Attica, where Conrail and D&H roamed, where pushers still shoved tonnage up the 1.15 percent hill east of town, and not far from where a quaint little tourist line still chuffed through the countryside with the word “Attica” in its name.
May 28, 2019
A Visit to Strasburg
Nestled in the heart of scenic Lancaster County, historic Strasburg, Pa., is home to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and the Strasburg Rail Road, one of the stops on our 2019 Fall Heritage Tour.
May 16, 2019
CSX in the Florida Panhandle
With the arrival of Precision Scheduled Railroading, CSX has doubled down on efforts to streamline its system, and once again, the fate of CSX’s operations in western Florida is up in the air.
April 26, 2019
A Boston Memory
Boston is an old city, with a history that stretches back nearly 400 years to its earliest days as a colonial seaport. Consolidations and closures over the years have matched the ups and downs of the local economy as fewer rail customers dictate shifting traffic patterns.
