THE NORTH WESTERN’S E-4 class Hudson represents the high water mark of locomotive streamlining. In fact, when Superman’s creator coined the phrase, “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,” I suspect he had an engine like the North Western’s E-4 class Hudson in mind! The 4-6-4 locomotive was powerful and unique in […]
OPERATORS OF STANDARD gauge trains, your switch has arrived. Announced in the 1999 MTH catalog, the first mass-produced Standard gauge switch readily available since the 1930s showed up in hobby shops earlier this year. For years, fans of Standard gauge trains had two choices: resuscitate old products made by Ives, American Flyer, or Lionel, or […]
A HANDFUL OF locomotive designs are elegant, and the streamlined look of the New York Central Dreyfuss Hudson 4-6-4 may be the most stylish of all. MTH Electric Trains has added a scale-sized version of the Dreyfuss to its Premier line, and it’s a doozy. Before World War II the New York Central set out […]
THE NORFOLK & WESTERN was the last major U.S. carrier to forsake steam power in favor of diesel. The railroad, deep in coal country, was renown for its fast passenger engines and hefty articulated freight haulers that could seemingly move mountains. The last and most advanced of the steamers operated by the N&W was the […]
COMPETITION HAS always brought out the best in toy train manufacturers. Just consider the fantastic accessories that Lionel and A.C. Gilbert brought out during the postwar era that represented similar but not identical answers to what the market wanted. Kids loved pretending that their trains hauled logs and coal, so each company created operating loaders. […]
THE ALCO RS-3 ROAD switcher was one of the Schenectady, N.Y., locomotive builder’s most popular diesels. Between 1950 and 1956, Alco produced 1,375 of the 1,600-horsepower units for North American railroads. Only the Alco S-2 switcher outsold the RS-3 in the United States. The locomotive is a rugged and reliable engine, as evidenced by the […]
THE MILWAUKEE ROAD bipolar electric left an indelible imprint on the toy train world. The body style was quite popular with prewar manufacturers and it captivated a generation of model railroaders.Oddly, this singular engine was ignored in the postwar and modern eras, and now, on the brink of the Digital Era, we finally have MTH’s […]
TODAY, UNION PACIFIC’S articulated M-10000 train is quaint, in an odd but wondrous, Buck Rogers sort of way. But in 1934, the turret-topped train had the impact of a Concorde SST jetliner on rails. The M-10000 and the Burlington’s Zephyr were the first gleaming streamliners in a world of ponderous smoky-black steam locomotives pulling long […]
THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD had two major challenges: The Allegheny Mountains and a primary commodity of coal. This double-whammy resulted in some of the most impressive non-articulated steam locomotives ever developed. And rest assured, when the line found an engine that “worked,” it cranked out a ton of them. The I-class 2-10-0 Decapods are a case […]
THERE ARE PLENTY of great-looking steamers on the market. Walk into any hobby shop and you’ll see row after row of these beauties. So amid a virtual sea of four-cylinder, huffing, puffing black giants, what can make another big engine stand out? Try mixing in a little color. MTH has modeled a brawny green champion […]
MTH IS OFFERING two starter sets that get away from the typical “seen-it-all-before” consists common in the field: the Alaska F40PH and US Army F40PH sets. North to Alaska This set models an Alaska Railroad rig that in reality is a red hot train for nature lovers and cruise ship passengers. In 1999, the railroad […]
MY OFFICE WAS hotter than a jail cell in on the wrong side of the border. I sat in the dark with my .45 on my desk, enjoying a lively conversation with Misters Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. Then I heard it. That rumble, those voices. It was haunting. Almost like the faded memory of […]
