50's Rail Pictures

Some members of this forum have seen my old 1950's rail pictures. As a teenager in the 50's I was able to take some slides of trains around the Midwest. I was in love with passenger trains even then.

Fortunately I kept all the old slides and have digitized them so they could be enhanced - Photoshop is a wonderful thing.

Recently I "found" a few I hadn't worked on and decided to re-do them all now that I am retired and have the time.

If you are interested, here is the link. There are over 150 of them, so take your time!

50's RR Pictures

Here are a dew of my favorites:

ATSF in Chicago taken from Roosevelt Road.



C&O George Washington arriving in Louisville Central Station - my Avitar.



L&N sitting in Louisville Union Station



B&O and C&O in Louisville Central station with the PRR bridge in the background.



One of the Chief trains arriving in Chicago Dearborn station.



Enjoy!

Wow! The pictures of Santa Fe train are very sharp. Almost looks like a model train!

They're priceless!

Fantastic pictures! I was pleased to see my favorite old road (Norfolk & Western) represented in the mix...and by a "J", no less!

I was having fun trying to guess the road by the paint scheme on the engines/cars before actually looking at the lettering. It's amazing to see the broad spectrum of beautiful colors that graced the passenger trains of yesteryear (as compared to today, when inquiries about paint schemes are more likely to be trying to differentiate between Phase IV and Phase IVb). That, along with the sheer number of passenger trains that ran a half century ago, makes me think I was born in the wrong generation for being a railfan.

Thanks again for sharing these great pictures!

Clark

Excellent shots indeed! I'm trying to determine the location of this photo from your main web site (#128)

http://tbedwell.smugmug.com/gallery/70451#152967332-M-LB

Is this one of stations in Louisville? Looks like a PRR train. Very nice.

Joe

Guest_Joe_* said:

Excellent shots indeed! I'm trying to determine the location of this photo from your main web site (#128)
http://tbedwell.smugmug.com/gallery/70451#152967332-M-LB

Is this one of stations in Louisville? Looks like a PRR train. Very nice.

Joe

Click to expand...

Louisville it is, but not the station PRR used, Union station. That shot is at the old Central Station which was at 7th and River Road. I-64 now runs right where the station used to be.
That is a C&O train from the east. There was a sleeper that was connected somewhere back east from a PRR train for through service to Louisville (the end of the line for C&O in KY). If my fading memory serves me right, it may have been the George Washington. I do remember seeing that PRR car many times on the train. As a kid, I grew up in far Eastern Louisville and saw this train most days coming into town.

Thanks for the comments.

I could be wrong, but I thought the GW terminated at Cinncinati Union? When was the extension South put in?

EDIT: Sorry about draggig up a dead thread, This turned up in a search and I didn't notice the date.

Really neat.

Good, well rounded selection. (how could it be otherwise since so much of it was from Chicago and area). Yes, I note some Lousiville also. The Santa Fe shots, the City trains, the C&O's, the MONON, so many.

I esp. enjoy such an emphasis on the South Wind, and that in its peak days. That is when it had a dome and some silver cars aquired from when the Dixieland (former Dixie Flagler)was discontineud in November 1957. Any time from late 1957 to the late 60's on was a good time for the South Wind. Of course before Amtrak took it over it had deteriated somewhat, no longer having through cars from CHI to Miami. But still good equipment, so far as I ever heard. Amtrak later named it the Floridian.

I am not busy today so I actually had time to quickly flick through all of them. Perhaps will be able to do thie same later today.

flashwave said:

I could be wrong, but I thought the GW terminated at Cincinnati Union? When was the extension South put in?
EDIT: Sorry about dragging up a dead thread, This turned up in a search and I didn't notice the date.

Click to expand...

Well - the Louisville section of this multi-sectioned train, didn't come through Cincinnati. It came through Ashland, KY.

Here is a 1947 table that shows the Louisville link and a lot of other places it had sections coming from.

The WB train arrived in Louisville at 10:30 AM and was turned to be the 2:00 PM departure

It was interesting that it took 2.5 hours to go from Louisville to Lexington, a trip today on I-64 that can be don in about an hour.

Also note that this table shows Louisville in the CT zone. We didn't enter the ET zone until the mod 50's when Louisville wanted to be in the same zone as the east coast.

MrFSS said:

flashwave said:

I could be wrong, but I thought the GW terminated at Cincinnati Union? When was the extension South put in?
EDIT: Sorry about dragging up a dead thread, This turned up in a search and I didn't notice the date.

Click to expand...

Well - the Louisville section of this multi-sectioned train, didn't come through Cincinnati. It came through Ashland, KY.

Here is a 1947 table that shows the Louisville link and a lot of other places it had sections coming from.

The WB train arrived in Louisville at 10:30 AM and was turned to be the 2:00 PM departure

It was interesting that it took 2.5 hours to go from Louisville to Lexington, a trip today on I-64 that can be don in about an hour.

Also note that this table shows Louisville in the CT zone. We didn't enter the ET zone until the mod 50's when Louisville wanted to be in the same zone as the east coast.

Click to expand...

Interesting about Louisville going on ET in the mid-50's. Atlanta and Chattanooga did the same thing, maybe a few years earlier, about 1950 I think. They have been on ET so long now most people have forgotten they used to be CT.

Funny thing, too, but daylight time went into operation maybe the late 50's, so people probably were barely used to one change when another came down the pike. Further, when daylight time went on, the railroads, airlines, and some others did NOT cooperate at first.

Really bizarre for a few years there. Imagine a ticket agent trying to tell somebody what time their train really leaves.

Guess we survived it, though, somehow.

Bill Haithcoat said:

MrFSS said:

flashwave said:

I could be wrong, but I thought the GW terminated at Cincinnati Union? When was the extension South put in?
EDIT: Sorry about dragging up a dead thread, This turned up in a search and I didn't notice the date.

Click to expand...

Well - the Louisville section of this multi-sectioned train, didn't come through Cincinnati. It came through Ashland, KY.

Here is a 1947 table that shows the Louisville link and a lot of other places it had sections coming from.

The WB train arrived in Louisville at 10:30 AM and was turned to be the 2:00 PM departure

It was interesting that it took 2.5 hours to go from Louisville to Lexington, a trip today on I-64 that can be don in about an hour.

Also note that this table shows Louisville in the CT zone. We didn't enter the ET zone until the mod 50's when Louisville wanted to be in the same zone as the east coast.

Click to expand...

Interesting about Louisville going on ET in the mid-50's. Atlanta and Chattanooga did the same thing, maybe a few years earlier, about 1950 I think. They have been on ET so long now most people have forgotten they used to be CT.

Funny thing, too, but daylight time went into operation maybe the late 50's, so people probably were barely used to one change when another came down the pike. Further, when daylight time went on, the railroads, airlines, and some others did NOT cooperate at first.

Really bizarre for a few years there. Imagine a ticket agent trying to tell somebody what time their train really leaves.

Guess we survived it, though, somehow.

Click to expand...

I have lived in a state in the CT zone and what I really enjoyed was prime time TV being over at 10:00 PM instead of 11:00 PM. Made going to bed much easier in the evening for an old guy like me.

I also spent a short time in the Atlantic Time Zone. No fun having the news on at midnight instead of 11:00 PM.