EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, a manufacturer has a brilliant idea for a product that should have been obvious – but wasn’t – to everyone in the toy train hobby. The latest to accomplish this feat is Pride Lines. It did so by thinking small! Specifically, Pride Lines realized that a classic Lionel Standard gauge […]
YOU’VE BOUGHT A NEW O gauge steam locomotive and are checking off its features: Sound system? Yes.Command control? Yes.Coil coupler? Yes.Cruise control? No.Fan-driven synchronized puffing smoke? No. Train America Studios can turn no into yes with its Engineer-On-Board cruise control and its Turbo Smoke smoke generator. We had both installed in a K-Line scale Hudson […]
THE Q1 DUPLEX 4-6-4-4 is a footnote to the Pennsylvania Railroad’s efforts to improve the performance of its M1-class locomotives. The railroad’s question: “Could a duplex-drive locomotive perform better than the railroad’s M1-class locomotive?” The answer was “yes, but…” The Q1 was completed in May 1942. Unfortunately, wartime restrictions limited the development of the new […]
ON REAL RAILROADS, signal lights tell locomotive engineers what’s ahead, how fast to proceed, when to stop, when to go, and the position of a track switch. Pretty simple stuff, right? Yes, but in real railroading this basic concept also is applied in layers – envision the signaling on a bi-directional main line with plenty […]
ATLAS O IS OFFERING a rugged rendition of one of the stalwart diesels of the second-generation period – the GP35. The EMD GP35 was a prominent and reliable player in the game against General Electric and Alco for control of the U.S. locomotive market. The 2,500-horsepower, four-axle locomotives were built from October 1963 through January […]
THE ROYAL SCOT is British manufacturer Bassett-Lowke’s latest modern re-creation of one of its own classic prewar O gauge locomotives. The London, Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) created the Royal Scot to boost its express service in the competitive London-to-Glasgow passenger market. The first batch of 50 engines was ordered from the North British Locomotive […]
WHO HASN’T HAD the daydream? You buy the local branch line railroad and find a small switcher, and next thing you know, you’re the Commodore Vanderbilt of your town. But if your dream came true, chances are that your business plan (and wallet) would probably call for an industrial switcher, not an SD90MAC diesel. Industrial […]
SOMETIMES O GAUGE products hit the market that aren’t quite as practical as you might first believe, but nevertheless score a 10 on the “Neat-Oh”scale. The K-Line operating voltmeter car is one of those products. The voltmeter car is exactly that: a boxcar that reads track voltage. While the model rolls along, an analog meter […]
WHEN I WAS IN MY EARLY 20s, I remember being dazzled by a stereo receiver sold by J. C. Penney. It featured an unprecedented 241 light-emitting diodes on the faceplate. The product designers knew the way to snag a guy was with “eye candy.” Model Rectifier Corp. knows the appeal of “eye candy” as well, […]
THE NEW YORK CENTRAL had many fine passenger trains, trains with a pedigree, so to speak. One of the most venerable was the New York City-to-Detroit Empire State Express. Service began way back in 1891. To celebrate the train’s 50th anniversary in 1941, the railroad upgraded its operation with two brand-new 16-car train sets built […]
FEW OF THE locomotives that I’ve reviewed strike me as elegant. After all, in the real world these were just machines made to pull heavy loads. All the same, I would even forsake my beloved New York Central to say that the Southern Railway Ps-4-class 4-6-2 Pacific in that railroad’s wonderful green, gold, and white […]
AMERICAN MODELS, laboring quietly in the background of the model railroad biz, has surprised us with the release of its new S gauge General Electric U25B diesel locomotive. It’s a dandy version of a “U-boat,” the locomotive that positioned GE to challenge then-giant General Motors in the battle for the road engine market. General Electric […]
