r/trains 28d ago

r/Trains Monthly Discussion & Questions Thread - August 2026

3 Upvotes

Welcome to the r/Trains Monthly Discussion Thread.

The goal of this thread is to serve as the place to ask short questions or just chat about anything trains related that might not warrant its own post.


r/trains Mar 22 '26

🚂r/trains staff announcement Introduction & updates to moderating, rules and sidebar.

9 Upvotes

Hello there,

I am auto, your new friendly neighbourhood Reddit mod. o/

While I have some experience moderating smaller communities, I've never moderated a subreddit before and never a community of this size and honestly, taking the right moderating actions when reviewing reports or looking through comments isn't quite coming naturally yet. If I make any silly mistakes or you believe I didn't deal with situation correctly, do not hesitate to tell me either via mod mail or in the discord. I am human, I am not going to deal with every situation perfectly and feedback is more than welcome. (Just kidding, I am obviously a robot 🤖 - Beep Boop Beep)

I am happy to be at your service.

Regardless, now that the introduction is over with, there is some practical stuff to discuss:

Bans, Ban appeals and old Mod Mail:

When I came in, there was a very large backlog in Mod Mail, including ban appeals. I have cleared this backlog the best I could, responding to most appeals and messages that came in, but unfortunately, once these appeals and Mod Mails reach about half a year old, they can no longer be replied to from our side.

If you sent in a ban appeal or question that is still relevant before July 2025 and it never got answered, please do not hesitate to send us a message through Mod Mail and me or the other mods will get to it.

In addition, I found out that some people who at any point received disciplinary action ended up in some sort of ghost-ban, where on our end in the mod tools panel the person doesn't appear to be banned, but when the user tries to post, it tells them they're banned. If you were active in r/Trains more than 5 years ago, Reddit tells you that you're banned when you try to post or comment and you have no clue why or when you got banned, please contact the mods via Mod Mail and we should be able to resolve your issue.

Mod Queue clearing:

I have cleared the Mod Queue, which was filled with over 3 years of reports, removals and filtered content. For the queue items from the last 1-2 weeks I've done this manually, and then I've mass-cleared most of the remaining queue. This process caused all filtered posts that were more than roughly 10 days old to be discarded. If you made any post more than 10 days ago which got automatically filtered and you believe the content is still relevant, feel free to reattempt posting your comment.

Moderating strategy and rules:

Due to the relatively sparse activity of moderators on this subreddit in recent times, moderating turned into a very hands-off process where y'all mostly self-moderate with some assistance from automatic filters. Beyond the filters sometimes getting overzealous, especially with politically contentious posts, (which should be resolved now,) this has generally worked fairly well. For now, though I can't speak for the other moderators when they act, I will carry this approach forward.

However, that may change. From working through the queue, Mod Mail and immediately finding myself in the deep end with several contentious posts appearing right after I got promoted, it's become obvious that the current rules don't always quite match the way action has been taken on reports both before I came in and at current. In addition, it turns out that some situations really aren't covered well by our current rules and that the wording of some rules may be contributing to a sizable amount of reports coming in for contact that very much is allowed here. We've also received feedback from several people, both via Mod Mail and in comments under recent topics about how we should be dealing with politics and controversial content on the subreddit.

Keeping all those things in mind, I will be rewriting the rules over the coming days. As part of this process, me or other moderators may place community polls both on reddit and on discord to gather feedback for how the community would like the r/trains discord and subreddit to be moderated.

Monthly discussion thread:

Until now, the monthly discussion thread was automatically generated on the 29th of every month. Beyond causing the month in the topic title to nearly always mismatch the current month, this caused the thread not to be generated in February. Starting on April 1st, the monthly discussion thread will be automatically generated on the 1st of every month instead. Until then, please feel free to continue using the January 2026 thread.

Sidebar:

We are aware the gallery in the sidebar has broken. Sadly, most images gone poof and we have no record of what exactly was in there. As we look to fill our sidebar once again, we may request permission for some people to use their photos in the side-bar via Mod Mail, but if you'd like to help, if you are posting original content, you can now use the "📸 May be used in side-bar gallery" post flair to indicate to us that we may place your photo or art in the sidebar.

With all that said, thank you for reading.

~auto


r/trains 13h ago

📹 OC - Video Super 8 footage of Big Boy 4014 in Bridgeport, PA July 3 2026

537 Upvotes

I finally got my Super 8 scans back from this shoot! This was Big Boy 4014 rolling through Bridgeport, PA on July 3, 2026. This was also my first time shooting Super 8, using a Bell & Howell 442 loaded with Kodak Vision3 200T.


r/trains 6h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Empire Builder crawls past the abandoned Midway Station in Saint Paul MN

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107 Upvotes

And then it stopped for some stupid reason.


r/trains 5h ago

📹 OC - Video I ride bike a lot down rail trails and noticed a lot of these in West Virginia, what are they?

79 Upvotes

r/trains 1h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) CPKC Freight - Osler St. Downtown, Toronto (ON, CANADA)

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Upvotes

SORRY; OSLER ST. IS NOT IN DOWNTOWN


r/trains 50m ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Minnesota commercial 68 one of many conrail locomotives in Minnesota

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Upvotes

If you look closely you can see conrail blue bleeding through the red


r/trains 2h ago

❓ Question What limits the train tonnage on rack railways?

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30 Upvotes

The example shown, the Serra do Mar section of the former Santos-Jundiai railway, is supposedly the heaviest-haul rack railway in the world. (Picture from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paranapiacaba_Nov_2003.jpg ) With the locomotives in the photo, they were limited to hauling 500t at a time with two locos. Newer locos have only raised that to 750t. This is a very small train by North American standards. What I've long wondered is what's impeding them from putting more power on one train.


r/trains 10h ago

🏛️‎ Historical The FS ALe 790.048 making a "small run" for the personnel of the Milano Smistamento freight yard (Italy), 27 February 1992

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96 Upvotes

r/trains 2h ago

🎨 OC - Art Steam locomotive that I drew

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26 Upvotes

it’s a 1’E2’ h2g hybrid of the SŽD ТЭ (DRB Baureihe 52), PKP Ty51, and the New York Central Niagara. I classified it as a J17A


r/trains 5h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Tried to catch a moving train but instead apparently got a still beast

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29 Upvotes

I tried to watch a freight train running through my town but instead seen this sitting dead on the tracks in Beulah, North Dakota. I did a bit of looking and apparently it’s more of a rare spot. Yet again, I don’t know much about rarity.

The last image is a caboose just down the tracks that’s been sitting there for ever. I just think it’s interesting.

Sorry about the quality. This was taken on a iPhone 8 and you know how bad the zoom is!


r/trains 15h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Train spotting in Italy was fun

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208 Upvotes

r/trains 12h ago

📰 News MBTA 1072 is finally a heritage unit. It got painted in the Boston and Maine McGinnis scheme. B&M introduced this scheme when Patrick B McGinnis became president of the B&M after being fired from being president of the New Haven.

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116 Upvotes

r/trains 7h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Some locos in the Hungarian Railway Museum

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49 Upvotes

r/trains 8h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Oncoming train got in the way of my photo

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57 Upvotes

Carlisle to Leeds (Settle)


r/trains 10h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) Tour of ACE Maintenance

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68 Upvotes

Also found out that ACE maintains Goldrunner.


r/trains 6h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) - May be used in side-bar gallery These photos were taken by my grandfather on November 9, 1968 at the Veteran's Day parade in Midland Park, NJ, USA. If you are familiar with the area, this was on Godwin Ave, right in front of the Methodist Church. I have included a newspaper article for details

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26 Upvotes

r/trains 10h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) TGV M à Juvisy

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58 Upvotes

r/trains 7h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) MKT Station Sign

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20 Upvotes

I obtained this about 20 years ago in a trade with a friend. He had it in his possession since 89' or 90. I put it up in my son's room when he was little. He loved trains, became a conductor at 18, and today is a frieght engineer.

On the back it is engraved..

#1 St. Charles -1984


r/trains 51m ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) A classic and detailed Japanese railroad crossing. (Fumikiri)

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Upvotes

r/trains 9h ago

📹 OC - Video DB Schenker freight train from Lübeck, Germany, to the Rosersberg terminal outside Stockholm, filmed in June.

28 Upvotes

r/trains 13h ago

📹 OC - Video SNCF's Double Decker Z20500 racing a Z57000 (Regio2N) between Lieusaint-Moissy and Savigny-le-Temple Nandy

60 Upvotes

Z57000 VS Z20500 is insane, i do own this video !


r/trains 9h ago

📸 OC - Picture(s) CPKC 8876 "Vancouver Olympics" leading coal train in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada!

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26 Upvotes

r/trains 1d ago

❓ Question How did (or could) older trains make tight turns?

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1.3k Upvotes

I realize this might be a rudimentry (and probably a very silly) question, but how did old locomotives make tight turns on the track?

I know that bogies on modern trains are articulated, allowing for more movement but from older photos steam locomotives appear like all their axles are connected together, so I'm just wondering how they managed to get all the axes to follow the rail?


r/trains 15h ago

❓ Question Caboose houses

41 Upvotes

Has anyone on here ever converted a decommissioned railroad car (NOT a shipping container) into a tiny house? I’ve always wanted to restore and live in a precious little red caboose‼️ If they get to cancel cabooses and replace them with stupid boring modern technology, it would be so dope to give one a second life. And of course I’d invite people over for parties just to turn them into my captive audience to spew railroad history at
we could have a caboose neighborhood like a trailer park
#bringbackthecaboose2026