Extra Board
Welcome to Trains & Railroad of the Past’s Extra Board! We explore a different perspective of classic late era railroading every month. 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.
August 15, 2025
1970s Trips to Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pa.
Trips to Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pa., in the mid-1970s revealed a colorful variety of early Amtrak, Conrail, and Chessie System action.
August 15, 2025
JA Tower at Emmaus Junction
Visiting JA Tower in Emmaus, Pa., in the 1950s was an eye-opening experience for a young railfan taking some of his first railroad photographs.
May 13, 2025
Railfanning Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri
The first part in a series recalling memories of railfan adventures in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, between 1971 and 1990.
May 13, 2025
Small, But Mighty: Lehigh Valley 119
The story of Lehigh Valley 119, a postwar EMD SW1 diesel switcher that worked locals and yard jobs across the system.
January 15, 2025
Milwaukee Road Lines West: Regrets
Chance visits to Milwaukee Lines West territory during family vacations led to an obsession to return to photograph the final years of electric operation.
January 15, 2025
Pittsburgh: A City of Hills and Bridges
Pittsburgh’s numerous suburban neighborhoods in the hills were connected to downtown by numerous Pittsburgh Railway Co. streetcar lines.
January 15, 2025
The Railroad Runs on its Stomach
Working for Lehigh Valley Railroad in the 1970s, I learned that the railroaders who were well-fed were certainly happier, and probably better at performing their duties.
November 20, 2024
Union Pacific in Cheyenne, Wyoming
For nearly a decade, I had the privilege of living within 125 yards of Union Pacific’s Overland Route in my hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
November 20, 2024
Steamtown in the 1960s
F. Nelson Blount used the money from his seafood processing business to help fund his private collection of steam locomotives that found a home on the Vermont-New Hampshire border.
November 20, 2024
The Allentown Triangle
It’s hard to believe that the city of Allentown, Pa., once had a rail system that supported the operation of four signal towers as late as 1968.
