Atlas N scale 4,180-cubic-foot-capacity Airslide covered hopper Underbody details include separate, factory-applied outlet gate piping, hopper outlets, underframe slope braces, and the cylinder/brake assembly. Atlas Model Railroad Co. has added a new model to its expanding N scale lineup, the General American 4,180- cubic-foot capacity Airslide covered hopper. The model, based on a mid-1960s […]
A version of this article appeared in Model Railroader’s special issue from 2018: Build a Small Railroad. Pursuing my hobby concurrently with my military career meant I needed a portable model railroad that could still suggest the scale and intensity of a gigantic prototype in an impossibly small space. I found what I needed in […]
Modeling a narrow gauge railroad in a small space: Modeling a logging camp requires a variety of structures, trackwork, scenery, figures, and activities. The camp includes not only loggers involved in different pursuits, but also woodchoppers, a laundress, checkers players, engineers and mechanics, stable hands and horses, bears, garbage cans, railroad materials, and more, surrounded […]
A version of this article appeared in Model Railroader’s special issue from 2018: Build a Small Railroad. In today’s world of trains, big 6-axle locomotives, and flashing red lights replacing cabooses, it’s comforting to know that spotting a single boxcar at a warehouse is still an integral part of railroading. Designing the module As I […]
All this month — May 2020 — Classic Trains editors are celebrating the heritage, history, and images of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. Please enjoy this photo gallery of images from the David P. Morgan Library archives at Kalmbach Media that include Santa Fe diesel- and steam-powered freight trains through time. You might […]
Steve Miazga describes how he built a potato warehouse, including modeling mortar rubble walls, for his N scale layout in the July 2020 Model Railroader. See a PDF version of this by clicking here. […]
How to find items in your chosen scale Download the PDF here. Once you have settled on a scale that strikes the right balance for you, you can then begin to assemble the pieces to build your railroad—locomotives, rolling stock, buildings, vehicles, and people. Some manufacturers are good enough to mark the scale of their […]
David Popp Nothing says “impressive” quite like a rugged mountain range full of jagged rock faces. Though mountains appear solid to us, many are just individual layers of rocks, stacked one on top of another. If you keep this idea in mind, then adding impressive rock features to your layout isn’t a difficult task. Whether […]
HO scale locomotives Electro-Motive Division SD70MAC diesel locomotive. Alaska RR (blue-and-yellow scheme), BNSF Ry. (green-and-cream warbonnet in one road number, Heritage III in three numbers), Burlington Northern (as-delivered green and cream scheme, three numbers), CSX (dark blue and yellow with “boxcar” herald), Mexican Rail Transportation (gray and red Kansas City Southern-style scheme, three numbers), and […]
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific has pulled the plug on its innovative Cold Connect reefer service, which the railroad had touted as a way to return long-lost perishables business to the rails. The service linked growers in California and the Pacific Northwest with consumers in the Northeast and New England via a mammoth refrigerated warehouse […]
Rubber rock molds and hydrocal plaster make it easy to add exposed rockfaces and other dramatic scenic elements to your model train layout Nothing says “impressive” quite like a rugged mountain range full of jagged rock faces. Though mountains appear solid to us, many are just individual layers of rocks, stacked one on top […]
Name: Bob Moffett Railroad Name: Birdhaven & Hemlock Location: West Virginia Scale: Mixed Theme: Late 1950s- early 1960s Description: This is the last load of logs being brought in at the end of the day, pulled by the railroad’s newly acquired Climax locomotive. As the sun goes down, the lights come on for a different […]
