The new town of Westcott has moved from concept to construction. Watch as host Gerry Leone shares how he initiated the development by laying out the town on a sheet styrene template. Learn helpful tips for arranging city streets, structures, and even rail-served industries. Plus, you’ll also glean insights for working with styrene or similar […]
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Pennsylvania J1a 2-10-4 6483, one of 125 J1’s and J1a’s the PRR built at its Altoona shops in 1942–44 to the plans of Chesapeake & Ohio’s class T-1, stands under the coal dock at Columbus, Ohio, in July 1950. Classic Trains coll. […]
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NEW ORLEANS — Southern California’s Pacific Harbor Line was recipient of two awards Monday — the inaugural Environmental Award and the Veterans Engagement Award — at the American Short Line and Regional Rail Association’s Annual Conference and Exhibition. Also, the ASLRRA posthumously awarded its Schlosser Distinguished Service Award to Jack Parliament, retired from the D&I […]
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CHICAGO — The Historic Pullman Foundation will celebrate its 50th anniversary at its annual Rail Car Reception, set this year for Thursday, May 18, aboard three historic Pullman cars on the Track One platform at Chicago Union Station. The reception will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The event is a prelude to the […]
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INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Rail Road has begun construction of a new container yard at its Senate Avenue Intermodal Terminal, the company announced Friday. The 6-acre facility connects directly to a recent terminal expansion completed in December 2022, and is built to support more than 1,000 empty containers and an equivalent number of chassis. “This […]
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Duluth & Northeastern 2-8-0 No. 16, pictured without her smokebox door inside the short line’s enginehouse in September 1954, went into a river in 1916, was caught in a wildfire in 1918, and was inside the old enginehouse when it burned down in 1952. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
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CHICAGO — Midwest Amtrak service has resumed after a storm stretching from Arkansas to the East Coast disrupted routes with downed trees and power outages. Beginning Friday, March 31, many trains were held at stations while tracks and grade-crossing highway warning devices were cleared and inspected. Weather issues continued today (Sunday, April 2), when catenary […]
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — On Friday, the day after a derailment and fire involving hazardous materials in the south central part of the state, Minnesota legislators heard testimony on a rail safety bill in the state Senate Transportation Committee. Unlike recent legislation elsewhere, however, SF 3187 focuses more on emergency preparedness than railroad regulation. The […]
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BRANSON, Mo. — A series of wheelset and track issues led to the derailment of a theme-park railroad in October 2022, according to a report released by the Missouri State Fire Marshal’s Office. One employee and six passengers were injured in the derailment on the 2-foot gauge“Frisco Silver Dollar Line Steam Train” at the Silver […]
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The Nickel Plate Road’s major components were all in place by 1949. The Nickel Plate, formally the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, was conceived in 1881 as a Buffalo-Chicago project to compete with the parallel Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (later New York Central) of William H. Vanderbilt. To thwart rival […]
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Meet Mark Bottrill In a paragraph, how did you get started in the hobby? Despite being a lifelong railfan, I had no knowledge of large scale or US garden trains prior to 2003. This changed when I saw a screensaver on the computer monitor of a USAF Major I met while serving in the military […]
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The Fairbanks-Morse H12-44TS locomotive was a familiar-looking unit with different internals. FM was a fierce competitor in the early days of dieselization, perhaps remembered most for its H24-66 Train Master, a six-axle 2,400 hp road-switcher that impressed almost every railroad it demonstrated on. Among its lesser-known successes were three specialized units produced […]
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