What is the largest radius curve on your layout? If you said anything less than 24”, you won’t be running 85-foot passenger cars any time soon. Even then, a 24” curve is extremely tight for those cars to navigate. Fear not, I have the solution for your long passenger car dilemma: short steam era passenger […]
A map and profile compares Canadian Pacific’s original line up the west slope of British Columbia’s Kicking Horse Pass with the 1909 route that included two spiral tunnels, still in use today. Classic Trains coll. […]
The Lionel-GE locomotive history arguably goes back more than a century. The first General Electric models made by the toy train manufacturer in electric and diesel profiles were separated by about 60 years. The internal-combustion model came almost a decade-and-a-half after GE started making that type of engine. Lionel GE locomotive history General Electric entered […]
The Menards Cripple Creek County Jail is a place where your O scale folks can do the time if they’ve committed a crime. It has a sort of dark demeanor of a place you can take your 10-year-old who filched a candy bar to and scare them straight! This building has what the movies call […]
The MTH Erie 0-8-8-0 Angus models a steam engine in the railroad’s L1 class. Three were built in 1907 and numbered 2600-2602. These were the only articulated camelback locomotives ever made. In that year, this was the largest locomotive in existence. Weighing in at 410,000 lbs., these behemoths could develop 94,000 lbs. tractive effort. This […]
Still in use more than 180 years after they were built, the Keystone Arch Bridges of western Massachusetts stand as enduring monuments to the skill of their creators. An economic crisis Boston had a problem in the late 1830s. The newly completed Erie Canal was drawing more and more trade to the ports of New […]
Kansas City Southern Shay locomotives were oddballs on a steam locomotive roster of non-conformity. Ephraim Shay came up with the design for the geared locomotive in the 1870s. The Lima Locomotive Works popularized the design and sold almost 2,770 copies. Throughout the Leonor F. Loree administration, Kansas City Southern was a loyal Alco […]
Chris Montagna of Chris’s Trains and Things is checking out some of the latest releases from MTH Trains: the most recent run of its 36-foot Premier line refrigerated cars. These were delivered in early 2023. MTH cataloged cars decorated for Pioneer Valley Ham; White Rock Water; Fox River Butter; and Fruit Growers Express. The billboard […]
The Bobber Caboose comes to Lionel with the 2022 Volume I catalog. Although new to the Orange & Blue, these models aren’t an entirely rare site on O gauge layouts since they were previously produced by MTH Electric Trains. Lionel purchased the tooling for these cars from MTH during the latter’s sell-off a few years […]
Rapido United States Railroad Administration single-sheathed boxcar Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: Single car, $49.95; six-pack, $299.70 Era: 1918+ Manufacturer: Rapido Trains Inc., 500 Alden Road, Unit 21, Markham, Ontario L3R 5H5 Canada; 905-474-3314; rapidotrains.com United States Railroad Administration single-sheathed boxcar features: New tooling Details including roof and handbrake KC or AB brakes as appropriate Wood or […]
Trains and Christmas go hand-in-hand, and many of us had some special railroad-related gifts on our wish list, but instead of a wish list, this is a list of the locomotives we didn’t get for Christmas. These models either have never been mass-produced in our preferred scale or have not been produced in a decade […]
Garden railroading in Hawaii: In late 2013, my wife set in motion a scheme that eventually became the Oberammergau, Ogden & Olomana Railroad – the Triple O. A few books, a GR subscription, and a year of study later, and we broke ground on what has become a family project to bring a stylized piece […]
