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A fast freight rides a two-railroad speedway in May 1971. Jerry A. Pinkepank 1 Cotton Belt freight. A St. Louis Southwestern Railway (SSW, common nickname Cotton Belt) freight rolls north on Missouri Pacific tracks May 8, 1971, at Gorham, Ill., on the 123.7 miles of MoPac trackage rights Cotton Belt used to reach the Illinois […]
Frank and Tom Novak collection 1 Freight house. Staunton (“Stan-ton”) in 1950 had a population of 19,927. All towns of this significance once had a freight house where less-than-carload (LCL) freight was handled. Warehousemen used a forklift or hand truck to “platform” freight between boxcars and local trucks. By 1958 most railroads were getting out […]
W.A. Akin, Jr. 1 Split-point derail device. Considered more effective than a lifting-block derail when there is extra risk of cars rolling out onto the main line from a “house track” or “back track” (terms for station trackage other than a passing siding), or from an industry track, especially when there is a descending grade […]
Click on the image or link to download a PDF of this drawing of the Union Pacific Big Boy In 1941 the Union Pacific RR took delivery of its first 4-8-8-4 single-expansion articulated steam locomotives. Aptly named “Big Boy,” these 7,000 hp, 386-ton locomotives were the heaviest and among the most powerful simple articulateds ever […]
There are plenty of interesting small details that can be added to complete a model of a heavyweight Pullman observation car. David P. Morgan Library collection Passenger car end details were pretty standard and most followed the pattern used on sleeping cars built by the Pullman Co. The car in the photo is Crystal Point, […]
This open-air running repair shop was part of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie’s former Gateway Yard in East Youngstown, Ohio. The company service gondola in the foreground transferred wheelsets between the main wheel shop and other smaller car repair shops around the P&LE system. Don Wood photo Railroad equipment sustains a great deal of wear […]
Long stretches of elevated main line gave the New York Central RR’s 30th Street Branch its High Line nickname. New York Central RR’s 30th Street Branch was known as the High Line because of its long stretch of elevated mainline track. Learn all about this interesting prototype railroad in the article below originally published in […]
In the December 2014 Model Railroader, Seth Neumann and Chris Drone wrote an article about using radio-frequency identification (RFID) and a computer to track rolling stock and new possibilities for operation. Prototype railroads have been using scanning technology since the late 1960s. Automatic Car Identification (ACI) used an optical reader and a color-coded plate to […]
Corning, Iowa, is a small town that was served by the former Chicago, Burlington & Quincy’s main line. This view looking east shows the wide curves that allowed the Zephyrs to speed through town at 80 mph. The crossovers helped the local freight do its switching. Henry McCord photo For many years small towns were […]
In the summer of 1955, a Baltimore & Ohio “Big Six” 2-10-2 helper was shoving hard on the steel caboose as it helped an eastbound coal drag at Rockwood, Pa. Phil Hastings photo Helper operations were carefully coordinated using locomotive whistle signals as specified in the railroad’s operating rules: (an “o” denotes a short sound, […]
Erie-Lackawanna mail train No. 7 passes through Binghamton, N.Y., in 1965 with a mixture of head-end cars. J.J. Young Head-end traffic helped cover some of the costs of America’s passenger trains for many years. Contracts with the United States Postal Service covered the transportation of mail, while the Railway Express Agency (REA) provided a nation- […]
An Alco PA diesel and Berkshire 2-8-4 diesel meet on Tony Koester’s HO scale Nickel Plate Road model train layout. This timeline will help you choose an era for your model railroad. Tony Koester 1950: Dieselization. Ten Class 1 railroads had already dieselized before this year, including the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay; Chicago, Indianapolis […]
