'I like good real books, not little devices'

Gulf Mobile & Ohio railroad F3A in Chicago, 1972

This engine with road number 883A was built in June 1947 by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD) as a 1,500-horsepower cab unit -- the classic "chicken wire" mesh screens covering the upper side radiators was a signature styling element of early-production F3 units. The pic was taken from the Roosevelt Street bridge of The Plug commuter service between Chicago Union Station and Joliet Union Station, Illinois.

The loco was retained by the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio (and later the Illinois Central Gulf) alongside its stablemate 880B because it was equipped with an internal steam generator, which was required to provide heat to the vintage passenger cars seen behind it.

The Gulf, Mobile and Ohio was officially taken over on 10 August 1972.when it merged with its long-time parallel competitor, the Illinois Central, to form a new 9,600-mile system known as the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad (ICG).

once upon a time on French narrow gauge railways in sugar beet territory

The yellow triangular road warning sign saying BETTERAVES (French for sugar beets) warns drivers of slippery road conditions from fallen beets during the harvest season. This network originally served local sugar refineries to haul crops from the fields.

The railway line is narrow-gauge 600mm (a bit under 2 ft) track. It was the last operating survivor of the massive military trench railways built to supply the battlefields of World War I.

The locomotive is Franco-Belge N°2836 (CFCD N°10), an 0-8-0T built originally in 1945 for industrial and sugar-beet transport, and it is now classified as a French Monument Historique (National Heritage Site).

1986 Dacia TL GTL Sedan and Wagon

Dacia is a Romanian automotive manufacturer established in 1966 and owned by France's Groupe Renault since 1999.

SNCF X-5500/5800 class autorails in Pont-d'Hérault station in 1952

Diagrams of the X-5500/5800

This is located in the commune of Sumène in the Gard department of France, along the former Quissac-Le Vigan railway line at kilometer post 6 from Le Vigan on the single-track 46.2 km standard-gauge line. The line opened for the Ganges-Le Vigan section in July 1874, and the station building later found new life as a local school after passenger services ceased in 1969. Closure for freight took place in 1989.

More info

Present day view

British Rail class 76 electric locomotive seen in 1953

The prototype named Tommy was completed in 1941, followed by 57 units built in the early 1950s. Tommy was oiginally classified by the LNER as Class EM1. 

Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, they were 1.5 kV DC electric Bo-Bo type mixed-traffic locomotives built specifically to operate on the steeply graded Woodhead Line connecting Manchester and Sheffield via the Woodhead Tunnel. They hauled heavy coal and industrial freight trains over the Pennines until the entire class was withdrawn when the trans-Pennine section of the route closed in July 1981.

More on the class

The pic was was taken at the eastern portal of the Woodhead Tunnel, near Dunford Bridge in South Yorkshire.

traffic in Flinders Street, Melbourne, 1953

The W class trams were almost as much an icon as the Flinders Street station building. The main color today is more creamy and the VR sign with occupations available has gone. See earlier posts.

green, turquoise and yellow small gas station colors, Ukraine

Rather eyecatching.

an empty ore train hauled by two IORE electric locos from Narvik to Kiruna, Norway-Sweden, 2010

Passing through the Tornetrask station, obviously in autumn. This was once Dm3 locomotive territory, see earlier posts.  

"IORE is a class of 34 electric locomotives built by Adtranz and its successor, Bombardier Transportation, for the Swedish mining company LKAB's railway division, Malmtrafik. The class is a variation of Adtranz's Octeon modular product platform, thus related to Bombardier's later TRAXX platform. The locomotives are considered to be one of the world's most powerful locomotives and haul iron ore freight trains on the Iron Ore Line and Ofoten Line in Sweden and Norway, respectively. The 8,600-tonne 68-car trains are hauled by two single-ended Co′Co′ locomotives, each with a power output of 5,400 kW (7,200 hp)," says Wikipedia (more here)

From an old calendar, pic credited to Mikael Lundberg.

driver's cab view of the tracks, pulling out of Modane, France, towards the Mont Cenis tunnel

The Arc river is on the left. See earlier posts.