TRAINS April 2003

Cover story: Is being a railfan un-American?
Whoever thought a hobby could get the FBI knocking at your door? Now the government thinks being a railfan might endanger national security. Read why in this TRAINS Magazine special report.


Harry and me and the Kay See
Say you’re the new vice president of operations for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway. What would be your unlikeliest assignment? How about riding with former President Harry Truman on a Kansas City Southern business car?


British Columbia’s splintered dream
In 1952, the province of British Columbia pinned its future on a frontier railway. But traffic didn’t follow. Now BC Rail is at a crossroads. Will anyone ride to its rescue?


New York City: Like a vision of Dante’s
Go inside the 53rd Street subway tunnel.


Railroad blueprint: L&N’s Bardstown Branch
L&N’s 37-mile branch line through central Kentucky has two claims to fame: Stephen Foster, and bourbon whiskey.


Map of the Month: Classification yards
TRAINS Magazine plots North America’s biggest and busiest yards: where they are, what they do, and who built them.


Railroad reading: He laughs best…
Irony on the Southern Railway’s Rat Hole.

Plus expert analysis covering every aspect of railroading.


Don Phillips: A railfan generation gap? So be it.


Larry Kaufman: The odds on a UTU-BLE merger just got better.


Locomotives: Indiana Harbor Belt: End of the line for another bastion of EMD switchers.


Passenger rail: Talgo wants to build new trains for the U.S. Will there be any takers?


City rail: Transit ridership regains lost ground; New York mulls expansion plans.


Preservation: Pennsylvania’s Kinzua Bridge to get emergency repairs.