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It’s not hard to give a postwar Lionel GP7 a new lease on life. Unless they’ve really been abused, these workhorses can be returned to service with some cleaning, adjustment, and maybe a little lubrication. This particular model had been stored for years in a dry climate. Additionally, the previous owner had removed the D-cell […]
The combined eastbound Super Chief/El Capitan approaches the mail crane at Los Cerrillos, N.Mex., on the Santa Fe in January 1962. In the train’s Railway Post Office car, a clerk is ready to snag the pouch. Clinton W. Morgan Jr. photo […]
Facts & features Name: Virginia & Western RR, Tidewater DistrictScale: HO (1:87.1)Size: 1′-3″ x 17′-0″Theme: Waterfront industrial districtLocale: Mid-Atlantic tidewaterEra: 1948-54Style: ShelfMainline run: NoneMinimum radius: Cosmetic curvesMinimum turnout: No. 5Maximum grade: NoneBenchwork: Plywood on shelf bracketsHeight: 44″Roadbed: CorkTrack: Handlaid code 70Scenery: tabletopBackdrop: Painted 1⁄4″ plywoodControl: Digitrax DCC Download a PDF of this track plan! Buy […]
The MTH Premier SD24 is a massive model of a historic locomotive more widely used than its initial owners list would indicate. Many units found second and third lives on other railroads after their initial stints. Like all of MTH’s newer offerings this wasn’t in a catalog. Instead, it was announced in 2022 as a […]
Long Island Rail Road train 233, behind a gray Fairbanks-Morse CPA20-5, pauses at Mineola station on its westbound run from Oyster Bay to Jamaica and Queens in 1950. John Flood photo […]
Any time the UPS truck drops a new railroad book on my porch, it’s a good day. But “good” is hardly adequate to describe the feeling I had a few days ago when a box from Indiana University Press showed up by the front door. Only superlatives will do when the subject is photographer […]
With a consist of just two freshly painted boxcars, two dead Fairbanks-Morse diesels, and a bay window caboose, Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261 is westbound at Elm Grove, Wis., in September 1954. The dirty, underutilized S3 looks like she’s at the end of her rope, but remarkably she began a second career in 1993 as […]
The Lionel Legacy C-Liner continues a keeps alive a sort of tradition in toy trains. While almost an outlier as a locomotive producer in real life, Fairbanks-Morse locomotives have enjoyed outsized success in the hobby. Witness the legendary Train Master. The locomotive builder’s effort to gain traction in the passenger and freight locomotive competition led […]
New York Central J-3 Hudson 5437 rushes west with mail train 257 at Millbury Junction, 7.5 miles east of Toledo on the Water Level Route, in September 1955. Philip R. Hastings photo […]
Ready for service at the head of the Milwaukee Road’s 100-mph Hiawatha trains, a brand-new F7 streamlined 4-6-4 shows off its cab interior. Classic Trains coll. […]
Two Grand Trunk Western F3s, dressed in the memorable but short-lived livery of parent Canadian National, wheel fast freight 492 (68 cars, all loads, including 63 reefers) near GTW’s crossing with the Pennsy and Nickel Plate west of Valparaiso, Ind., in May 1953. R. R. Malinoski photo […]
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 […]
