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Some O gaugers spend years designing and building their layouts, and others go at it with the speed of a runaway train. Count Steven Pasternak among the “I won’t sleep till the work is done” crowd. He told us he finished this two-level 5 x 9-foot three-rail display in less than 100 days! Lionel and […]
I found this manuscript from the late John Grams in our manuscript files. There was no date on the envelope but it’s likely from the early 1990s. The article discusses 12 Lionel products that, while great inventions, were fraught with problems or didn’t work exactly as advertised. He included the following disclaimer: “Lionel trains were […]
More and more of the O and S gauge railroads presented to Classic Toy Trains strive for realism. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but then you have modelers who, like Jim and Debby Flynn, honor the traditions of our hobby by creating a three-rail layout with a decidedly toy-like look. They operate a prewar […]
Tom Quinlan owned a lot of Standard gauge trains, but never got around to building a layout to showcase them. A few years before Tom died in 2014, his daughter, Kathy Duane, took matters into her own talented hands by constructing for her father the layout he always dreamed of having. In addition to freight […]
The hauling of wood chips necessitated unique rail equipment, especially during the 1960s-70s. This included both specially built cars, such as the Greenville wood-chip hopper, and repurposed gondolas, hoppers, and boxcars that were modified with extensions. Ready Made Toys’ (RMT) newest O gauge wood-chip hopper in the Trainmaster Premium Line goes the route of repurposing […]
I found this manuscript from the late John Grams in our manuscript files. There was no date on the envelope but it’s likely from the early 1990s. The article discusses 12 Lionel products that, while great inventions, were fraught with problems or didn’t work exactly as advertised. He included the following disclaimer: Lionel trains were […]
O gauge enthusiast Bruce Baron typically shares with us here at Classic Toy Trains photos of steam engines on his layout. So it came as a surprise – and a very pleasant one – to receive this slick picture of a diesel pulling covered hoppers into the big city on his layout in Munson Township, […]
I saw the obituary on Don Shaw’s passing in the Fall 2025 CTT. It brought back fond memories. I first met Don in the summer of 1975. I had just married that July and lived in Morris Plains, N.J., only a few miles from The Train Station store in Mountain Lakes. At the time, the […]
The worst time of the pandemic left Robert Soderstrom trapped in the basement of his home in Grand Blanc, Mich. He figured there was nothing else to do except expand his O gauge railroad and take lots of pictures of trains. Frankly, we at Classic Toy Trains are pleased. Robert sent us this shot of […]
Light snow started falling in the middle of the afternoon and finally let up after everyone dwelling on Will Rothfuss’ compact O gauge layout went to sleep. Now with the sun about to rise over Stroudsburg, Pa., a newsboy prepares to sell copies of the morning express to travelers. The solitary man impatiently waiting for […]
Lionel Trains continued celebrating their 125th anniversary with the release of their Volume 2 catalog in mid July. First, an interesting note: the second Lionel catalog has typically been called Volume 2. This one was called “July Release.” I wonder if there will be another catalog release before the end of the year? Stay […]
Tru-Vue was a stereoscopic viewing system and line of films first marketed in the 1930s. Two simultaneous exposures of the same object or scene were made from slightly different angles. When seen through a special viewer, the paired photos combined to form a three-dimensional image. Although stereoscopic photo cards and viewers had been around since […]
