THANKS TO THE BOARD GAME Monopoly, tens of millions have taken a ride on the Reading, although far fewer ever saw its 1,500 miles of rails. Had the ride on the Reading been real, by chance the locomotive out front might have been a high-wheeling 4-6-2 Pacific. According to A Century of Reading Company Motive […]
WHO WOULD HAVE thought there would be a market for brand new Dorfan Wide gauge locomotives in the 21st century? Not me. But the guys at JFP’s Fun Stuff saw a niche, and are offering a reproduction of the Dorfan no. 3930 “Crocodile” electric locomotive. For those coming into the theater after the picture began, […]
K-LINE’S O gauge Big Boy locomotive is made for John Q. Trainguy or Susy Q. Tinplater: the operator with a tight-radius layout and an equally tight budget, but who longs to operate trains at the Big Boy level. MTH and Lionel in their RailKing and LionMaster lines have used selective compression to build articulated locomotives […]
I HAVE A CONFESSION to make: I have a bias regarding steam locomotion. My favorite steam locomotives have the wheel arrangements 2-8-2 and 4-8-4. Everything else is “too big,” and the rest are “Weak Willies.” My bias began to crack with the MTH Premier line 4-4-2 Atlantic steamer (CTT, May 2001) and that crack has […]
I’VE PROBABLY evaluated more than 100 locomotives for Classic Toy Trains, but I can’t recall being as pumped up as when I popped open an orange and blue Lionel box and pulled out a black and gray New York Central SD80MAC. Yes, yes, I know. Despite being a die-hard New York Central fan, I am […]
WITH A LIST PRICE OF $649.95, the no. 31902 Pennsylvania K4 Freight Train set is by no means a child’s basic starter set. It’s an outfit for the grownup who wants to jump back into the hobby, but doesn’t want to go the entry-level $150 “New York Central Flyer” route. Included in this “return to […]
TO CROSS THE Rocky Mountains, the Union Pacific railroad was always looking for the next big thing. This eye toward innovation gave rise to such notable giants as the 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, the 4-12-2 Union Pacific, the massive DDA40X diesel, and the turbines. In 1952, the Union Pacific received the first of 10 4,500-horsepower turbine […]
J.L. COWEN WOULD probably smile at what Williams Electric Trains has been up to. Amid the scramble to seize the high end of the marketplace, company President Jerry Williams and Marketing Manager Larry Harrington are focusing on producing simple, well-made trains with a postwar flair that won’t break the bank. Starting with a copy of […]
FINALLY, ALL OF THOSE grand, O gauge passenger trains have an equally grand destination: Ace Trains station canopy. Ace Trains is a British company that makes tinplate reproductions of classic Hornby-style O gauge locomotives and rolling stock. Ace’s station canopy kit, distributed in the United States by Weaver Models, is its first structure. And what […]
OKAY, WHAT DOES THE typical American railroad buff know about British railway history? Tick-tock, tick-tock. Time’s up! Still drawing a blank? Then read on. British railroads have an exotic history just like American lines, but in an appropriately condensed land mass. Dozens of 19th-century railroad companies built a tangle of lines with fast passenger trains, […]
AMERICA’S MORALE took quite the beating in the turbulent 1960s and early ’70s. As the nation’s 1976 bicentennial approached, many Americans expressed indifference to a celebration. But not railroad enthusiast Ross Rowland. Rowland, in the best tradition of comedian Steve Martin, had a “Wild and Crazy” idea to celebrate America’s birthday. Taking his cue from […]
I WAS A LITTLE surprised at the heft of this thing. Unlike the other operating accessories we’ve reviewed in this issue, this one packed a surprising 8 pounds, 7 ounces. Why? The diner itself isn’t a cheap plastic repop of the body of some old Marx car. No sir! It’s a genuine K-Line extruded aluminum […]
