SoundTraxx, a well-known manufacturer of sound decoders and HOn3 narrow gauge trains marketed under the Blackstone Models label, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The company is based in Durango, Colo. SoundTraxx was founded in 1989 as the Throttle Up! Corp. in Pocasset, Mass., producing the Hyperlight lighting system. In the 1990s the company […]
The little door below the headlight on an Alco switcher like Grand Trunk Western S4 No. 8090 led to a veritable chamber of horrors for a young roundhouse worker. J. David Ingles I know there are many dangerous occupations. My wife’s ancestors were coal miners in Pennsylvania after coming to America, having mined coal in […]
Rapido Trains HO scale General Electric B36-7 diesel locomotive HO scale locomotives General Electric B36-7 diesel locomotive. Southern Pacific (as delivered); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; British Columbia Ry. (red, white, and blue “lightning stripe”); Conrail (as delivered, CSX patched numbers, and Norfolk Southern patched numbers); CSX (blue, yellow, and gray); Minnesota Commercial; Seaboard System […]
Stockton Terminal & Eastern No. 678 OmniTrax HAMBURG, Pa. – OmniTRAX Inc. and subsidiary Stockton Terminal & Eastern have donated SW1200 locomotive No. 678 to the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum in Hamburg. It is one of just five such units built for the Reading Co. by EMD in 1963. The museum is affiliated with the […]
LOS ANGELES – There’s a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel for Metrolink’s new Tier 4 F125 locomotive fleet. At a Saturday public meeting between railroad officials and residents of neighborhoods surrounding the carrier’s Central Maintenance Facility, Metrolink’s Neil Brown said that 32 of the new F125 locomotives are in service, 28 of […]
Bachmann HO scale 2-10-0 Russian Decapod steam locomotive HO scale locomotives 2-10-0 Russian Decapod steam locomotive. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; Erie; St. Louis-San Francisco (Frisco, with doghouse); Western Pacific; and painted black but unlettered. Dual-mode TCS WOWSound decoder; Keep-Alive capacitor; Chuffinity technology; cog V-belt flywheel drive; metal motor bearings; separately applied stack, domes, cab, […]
Santa Fe FT No. 100 was not only the railroad’s first mainline freight diesel, but part of the first order for mainline freight diesel power by any U.S. railroad. Eventually, the railroad would use 320 of the Electro-Motive products to dieselize its transcontinental main line. Santa Fe photo […]
Seaboard Coast Line Alco C628 No. 2201 leads a mixed consist of locomotives at Colliers Yard near Petersburg, Pa., waiting for a cut of cars. The six-axle Alco was built in 1963 for the Atlantic Coast Line. Walter Gay photo […]
Surrounded by the new wave of motive power, a Boston & Maine worker rests at Boston’s Charlestown engine terminal in May 1952. E7 3818, a Budd RDC3, and Alco RS3 1515 and siblings at right can ignore the steam locomotive facilities, all but obsolete by now. B&M’s “Minute Man” emblem dated from 1945. Frank and […]
Four Burlington Northern SD45s, led by No. 6536, power a westbound freight through the shadows of grain elevators at Des Lacs, N.Dak., in November 1973. The railroad rostered 222 such locomotives inherited from Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and St. Louis-San Francisco. John M. Robinson Jr. photo […]
Ore train ZBB exits Black Rock Tunnel and crosses the Schuylkill River in Phoenixville, Pa., on March 9, 1984, with SD60 No. 6702 leading. Conrail hauled ore 110 miles from Philadelphia’s Greenwich Point Pier to Bethlehem Steel’s namesake city. Robert Palmer photo […]
Model Railroader reviewed the Rapido Trains Inc. HO scale Santa Fe-rebuilt Budd cars in the September 2019 issue. Rapido Trains Inc., manufacturer of North American prototype HO and N scale locomotives, freight and passenger cars, and accessories, as well as British-outline models, celebrated its 15th anniversary in November 2019. Jason Shron, president of Rapido, shared […]
