Welcome to Cody’s Trackside Finds, a new series on Trains.com, where we’ll look at interesting locomotives, freight cars, structures, or details that I’ve come across while railfanning. In these entries, I’ll provide some background information on the subject, give you some modeling tips, and most importantly, encourage comments from the Trains.com community. Do you have […]
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Many readers have asked how we identify the current crop of big, modern road diesels. Unfortunately, it isn’t easy, as many locomotive designs have evolved into a family of similar looking locomotives. This means modelers have to study the details to figure out what locomotive is represented by a specific scale model. Comparing the model […]
Our sister magazine, Classic Trains, named Boston & Maine the railroad of the month for October 2019. Please enjoy this photo gallery of images from the David P. Morgan Library archives at Kalmbach Media that include B&M steam-powered freight trains through time. […]
A train dispatcher supervises the movement of trains over a designated portion of a railroad and also supervises the other employees involved in that movement. The dispatcher’s first responsibility is safety, to see that each train gets over the road without trying to occupy the same piece of track at the same time as any […]
Model Railroader magazine remains the leading source of information for our great hobby. You can get access to all of the more than 1,000 issues of Model Railroader from January 1934 to the present day by signing up for the exclusive online archive. Check out this classic story from the April 1988 issue. […]
The Cold hard tracks Crystal Lake was once used for harvesting ice. Blocks of ice were cut from the lake in winter, then stored in warehouses along the shore. The ice was shipped in refrigerator cars to Chicago via the “Ice Track,” a 2-mile branch that ran from the C&NW main line through the west […]
Not everyone has a fabulous railroad library to work from, but the library at the Model Railroader offices didn’t get me as far as you’d think. Following is a short list of places I’ve found amazing stuff when looking for research: • Most railroads have a historical society, so it’s good to have an up-to-date […]
Jerry A. Pinkepank 1 “Mountain Type” F3A. Briefly in 1947, EMD referred to its steam-generator-equipped, passenger-geared F3s as “The Mountain Type.” These units were intended for use on passenger trains that traversed grades for which E7s were not suitable. In September 1947 Union Pacific got eight F3 A-B-B sets, plus three extra A units, all […]
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 […]
A single photo from the 1950s of C&O’s ‘Sportsman’ at a small-city station at Staunton, Va., reveals plenty of small, easily overlooked details. 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 […]
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 toward the switch, […]
