A Herzog contract work train on the BNSF Railway at Winslow, Ariz., on July 5, 2013. Photo by Michael T. Burkhart […]
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Canadian Pacific in 1974
You squint through the train window to read the signs on parallel highway 148. They’re in French and English. It dawns on you that your ride in a Budd Rail Diesel Car from Ottawa to Montreal is about the most inauspicious way to begin a trip around the world. But no matter. It’s February 1974, […]
Simplify operation with train sequence lists
The hybrid sequence lists John Pryke uses on his HO scale New Haven Cape Cod branch specify the switching work to be done and provide authority for trains to move between stations. Here the Boston yard operator is placing outbound waybills and the train’s sequence list into the train pouch. Most modelers build their first […]
New products for the week of June 12, 2014
HO scale locomotives Electro-Motive Division FP7 diesel locomotive. New paint schemes: Atlantic Coast Line (black and yellow), Penn Central (black with red “P” on single unit, black with white “P” on two-packs), and Rock Island (maroon with yellow nose). Road-number-specific details, Blomberg B trucks, and etched-metal windshield wipers. Single FP7 (one road number): direct-current model, […]
Adding DCC power districts to a model train layout
Too many sound-equipped locomotives in one place, like those shown here on the MR&T, can spell trouble for a DCC layout. Paul Dolkos takes you through the steps he used to set up power districts on his HO model railroad. Imagine you’ve just begun running trains on a layout equipped for Digital Command Control (DCC) […]
Rollin’
New crude oil tank cars roll west on Canadian Pacific rails through Duplainville, Wis., on Jan. 12, 2014. Photo by Brian Schmidt […]
Toledo Train Day
Locomotives and rail cars are lined up on display at the 2014 National Train Day exhibit in Toledo, Ohio, on May 3. Photo by Joe Kohnen […]
Working on the railroad
Norfolk Southern train 19G, westbound at Lebanon, Pa., is led by SD70s Nos. 2539 and 2557 on Jan. 9, 2014. The track gang is installing new welded rail on both tracks of a 3-mile section of the double-track NS Harrisburg Line through this south-central Pennsylvania city. Photo by Mark W. Hoffman […]
Coast twilight
A Union Pacific ethanol train led by AC4400CW No. 7007 skirts the Carquinez Strait at sunset. The train is passing Eckley Pier with the wrecked remains of the steamship Garden City in the water. Photo by Brian Roberts […]
What kind of day did you have?
Bystanders inspect a sedan deluged with coke during a derailment of an L&N train in Chattanooga. C. K. Marsh Jr. One day in 1965, a friend and I were searching for the obscure terminal of the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railroad in the Alton Park section of Chattanooga. Coming up on a railroad crossing, we […]
MR Insider Exclusive: A visit to the Colorado Model Railroad Museum
Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page Neil Besougloff, Editor of Model Railroader magazine, recently traveled to Greeley, Colo., with a video camera in tow. Watch the stunning footage he captured of the Colorado Model Railroad Museum’s massive HO scale layout. And don’t miss the bonus coverage of his side […]
A glimpse at today’s streetcars
FULL SCREEN Mike Bjork One of the benefits of streetcars is that they introduce mass transit on the city streets where people park their cars, drive to work, and walk. A perfect example of that is with Portland’s original streetcar line where a person is about to cross in front of a northbound streetcar on […]
