The American Flyer Legacy 2-8-8-2 by Lionel was first cataloged in S gauge in 2012. The current offering appeared in the 2022 catalog. This time around the train maker is offering locomotives decorated for Norfolk & Western, Santa Fe, Clinchfield, Baltimore & Ohio, Virginian, Denver & Rio Grande Western, Union Pacific, Pennsylvania, and Northern Pacific. […]
John Allen’s Locomotive Weathering Secrets: Digging through back issues of Model Railroader the other day, I came across a short article about John Allen’s techniques for weathering locomotives. The January 1964 article features the work of several modelers, including Bill McClanahan and John Allen, and provides some tips on their practices for painting and weathering […]
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators will issue a decision by March 8 on Montana Rail Link’s request for permission to discontinue service over 656.47 miles of track in Montana and Idaho as part of the early termination of its lease with BNSF Railway. In a decision released today, the Surface Transportation Board accepted MRL’s petition, set […]
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday marked completion of the Clifton Maintenance Shop on Staten Island, the rebuild of a facility extensively damaged by Hurricane Sandy that has been upgraded to withstand Category 2 hurricane winds and a water surge of up to 3 feet. The 93,220-square-foot facility includes Staten Island […]
RALEIGH, N.C. — A dozen North Carolina short lines will receive approximately $12 million for infrastructure improvements under the state’s Freight Rail and Rail Crossing Safety Improvement Program, the N.C. Department of Transportation announced Wednesday, Dec. 7. The recipients match the state funds, leading to approximately $24 million in work to support improvements to 52 […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. rail traffic dropped by 3.3% in November — a total of 80,544 carloads and intermodal units — with carloads down 0.9% and intermodal traffic down 5.4%, according to the latest statistics from the Association of American Railroads. Meanwhile, the latest weekly traffic, for the week ending Dec. 3, was down 6% from […]
CARY, N.C. — Rail data provider Railinc is adding enhanced information on the location and status of railcar cushioning devices to its Component Tracking program, the company has announced. “Since its inception in 2013, the industry has implemented component tracking for hundreds of millions of critical railcar components including wheelsets, side frames, bolsters, and couplers,” […]
WATERTOWN, N.Y. — New York Air Brake’s DB-60 II brake control valve with Brake Cylinder Maintaining (BCM) has received unconditional approval from the Association of American Railroads for the BCM feature, becoming the only supplier granted full approval for the technology. BCM is a patented feature that improves braking performance by replenishing air pressure when […]
Chesapeake & Ohio 3039, seen at Cotton Hill, W.Va., in 1950, was the last of 40 big class T-1 2-10-4s the road received from Lima in 1930. Their 69-inch drivers set them apart from earlier, slower Texas types. Richard J. Cook photo […]
BEAUMONT, Texas — The National Transportation Safety Board will focus on switching procedures for contract rail switching operator PSC Group and refinery facility upkeep as it continues its investigation into a fatality at the ExxonMobil refinery in Beaumont, Texas, on Oct. 28, 2022, according to the NTSB’s preliminary report released today (Wednesday, Dec. 7). The […]
ATLANTA — The strategy shift that Norfolk Southern announced yesterday — focusing on providing consistent service and volume growth rather than on costs and the operating ratio — received a generally positive reception from Wall Street analysts. But they also said that to win over skeptical investors NS will have to prove that it can […]
Large scale boxcars and graffiti in an art exhibit: The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) opened its Art in the Streets show on April 17, 2011. It is the first major US museum exhibition on the history of graffiti and street art, tracing its development from the 1970s to the global movement […]
