Facts & features Name: Reading Co. Scale: HO (1:87.1)Size: 13′-6″ x 22′-0″ plus 2′-6″ x 5′-3″ West Philadelphia additionPrototype: Reading Co.Locale: eastern PennsylvaniaEra: 1930s to 1940sStyle: walk-inMainline run: 80 feetMinimum radius: 36″ (main)Minimum turnout: No. 6 (main), No. 4 (yards and industries)Maximum grade: 2%Benchwork: modified L-girderHeight: 50″ to 58″Roadbed: cork on plywood (main), Homasote on […]
Tangent Scale Models, known for its line of highly detailed N and HO scale injection-molded plastic freight cars, is now offering a General American Transportation Corp. (GATC) 1928-design 6,000-gallon, three-compartment tank car in brass. The tank cars, available in two-rail O scale (5’-0” gauge wheels) and Proto:48 (4’-8” gauge wheels), were produced by Sam Model […]
If you’ve read Model Railroader magazine for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed the hobby journey for many of our authors started with a train set. For baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, the set was often produced by Lionel or American Flyer. Fast forward a generation or two, and those sets were […]
Soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 35th Division board cars at Camp Robinson, Ark., on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The era of the troop train had thus begun. U.S. Army Signal Corps. photo […]
In seeking the oddest of oddball locomotives, today we will follow our compass to California’s Ludlow & Southern, one of many, many railroads past and present with the name of a city or a state and the addition of a compass direction. Think Kansas City Southern, Colorado & Southern, Arizona Central, Missouri Pacific, and Texas […]
Do it yourself locomotive restoration Yes, you can do it yourself! Restoring old tin trains is not as difficult as the popular folklore would have you believe. It doesn’t require any special skill or knowledge that you can’t master. Nor does it entail exotic or expensive equipment. Anyone can do it with simple household tools […]
In the spring of 1936, industrial design guru Raymond Loewy came up with a streamlined winner for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s glamorous Broadway Limited passenger train. Sleek, bullet-nosed, and skirted, Loewy’s upgrading of conventional K4 Pacific 4-6-2 No. 3768 captured the public’s imagination. People lined up to see the locomotive, which was dubbed the “Torpedo.” Learn […]
In 1938, toy maker A.C. Gilbert purchased the American Flyer Manufacturing Co. Production was moved from Chicago to Connecticut (Gilbert was based in New Haven). Gilbert turned the Flyer line upside down in the name of realism. Gone were sheet-metal steam and electric-profile locomotives with brassy trim and oversized features. They were replaced by realistic […]
I must have been 11 or 12 years old when I saw Lionel´s 1938 catalog. I turned to page 16 and saw locomotive 225E at the head of set No. 183E, a three-car freight train, and set No. 182E with three red passenger cars. I fell in love with the locomotive. It wasn’t the Baldwin […]
10 vintage toy train items for your holiday layout The holidays are fast approaching! If you’ll be setting up a display (or a permanent layout), Senior Editor Roger Carp has suggestions for 10 items to add for the most fun! 1. Lionel No. 154 highway signal – for once, its enormous height and out-of-scale proportions […]
Southern Pacific & World War II By the 1940s, the original Transcontinental Railroad main line around the north end of the Great Salt Lake had fulfilled its original purpose of connecting the eastern United States with California, and was now needed for World War II. Specifically, the U.S. war effort needed the Transcontinental Railroad’s steel […]
Rapido HO scale Northeastern caboose review: After locomotives, the next most distinctive thing on a railroad was its cabooses, and the new Rapido HO scale Northeastern caboose is one of the best models of this classic and widely used rolling office. Prototype history The Reading Co. started building steel eight-wheel cabooses in 1924 following, mostly, a […]
