The Best Friend of Charleston is widely considered the first steam-powered railroad locomotive built entirely in the United States for revenue service.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) is a Division of the Rail Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and also the nation’s oldest labor union.
In the early morning of April 30, 1900, John Luther “Casey” Jones, filling in for a sick engineer, sat behind the throttle of engine No. 382, pulling the Cannonball Express.
MARTA will replace its heavy rail fleet over the next several years with 224 railcars (56 four-car train sets) purchased from Stadler in 2019 for $646 million.
