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Overland passenger cars Scale: HO (1:87:1) Price: Coach, $42.99; four-pack (Busines car, coach, combine, and Railway Post Office), $149.98 Era: 1890s+ Manufacturer: Athearn Trains, 2904 Research Rd., Champaign, IL 61822; 800-338-4639; athearn.com Features: End handrails and ladders Clear (sides) and green-tinted (clerestory) windows RP-25 contour machined metal wheels Body mounted McHenry scale couplers Minimum radius: […]
2-8-0 steam locomotive Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: Direct-current model with 21-pin plug, $214.99; with dual-mode SoundTraxx Econami sound decoder, $284.99 Era: 1890s+ Manufacturer: Athearn Trains, 2904 Research Rd., Champaign, IL 61822; 800-338-4639; athearn.com 2-8-0 steam locomotive features: See-through cab windows Separate, factory-applied wire-form details Smokestack Boiler-mounted bell Light-emitting diode lighting Heavy die-cast metal frame RP-25 contour wheels Minimum […]
Construction of the Lackawanna Railroad’s colossal viaduct over Tunkhannock Creek at Nicholson, Pa., is in its early stages in this photo from Oct. 21, 1913. Nicholson Public Library photo […]
Here’s how to install the LionChief app on your smartphone or tablet and get the most out of your Bluetooth-equipped Lionel locomotives. Years ago, there was only one way to run our toy trains, and that was with a transformer. Today, we’re fortunate to have a lot of options to control our trains, including remotes […]
What was your first train set (or locomotive)? My late father built an HO scale model railroad for my twin brother and I when we were about 6 years old. He called it Twinsville, and I remember playing with it. I had a steam engine and my brother had a Santa Fe warbonnet diesel. After a […]
Before the current Chicago Union Station was opened in 1925, trains of the PRR, CB&Q, and Milwaukee Road used a terminal, Monroe Street Union Station, at roughly the same riverfront location. In this 1919 view, CB&Q Lounging Car No. 201 is on the rear of a Burlington train ready to depart south while Milwaukee 4-6-2 […]
One model manufacturer is “gearing” customers up for a new HO Scale Shay steam locomotive to come to market in 2022. United Kingdom-based KR Models Ltd. released product sample pictures and a test-run video recently which show the company’s version of the classic logging locomotive moving forward and reversing on YouTube. According to an advertisement […]
All through October, Classic Trains editors are celebrating the gritty, coal-hauling, Pennsylvania-based Reading Company railroad. Please enjoy this photo gallery of Reading freight trains selected from the image archives of Kalmbach Media‘s David P. Morgan Library. Reading Company, as a railroad, disappeared into Conrail more than 40 years ago. But it is still possible to […]
The November 2021 issue of Classic Toy Trains features a Lionel collection that contains such gems as the no. 2296W Canadian Pacific outfit and some of the finest examples of the rarest sets in the postwar era. You’ll also visit an O gauge homage to the Reading Lines in Pennsylvania, and an S gauge layout […]
Grain, the old-fashioned way Through the end of the 1800s, a lot of grain was shipped in 100-pound sacks. Here, workers load grain sacks into wood boxcars in Minneapolis around 1900. Minneapolis Public Library collection […]
Overland Route A trim Southern Pacific 4-6-2 makes better than 60 mph with Overland Limited east of Elko, Nev., in 1918, when Overland Route rail service was already nearly 50 years old, and the top trains were numbered 1 and 2. Fred Jukes photo […]
Union Pacific, which has long put profitability ahead of volume growth, has turned over a new leaf. UP now says it is focused on gaining traffic – and that it will grow faster than the rate of industrial production over the next three years by diverting freight from highway to rail. UP’s emphasis on […]
