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Midday Modeler – 05.04.2022: This week on Midday Modeler, Classic Toy Trains editor Hal Miller hosts a conversation with eminent toy train enthusiast and YouTuber, Chris Raines. Chris talks about his experiences with toy trains and also the hobby’s direction with the younger crowd. Midday Modeler is a new, regular video segment, recorded live and […]
What was your first train set (or locomotive)? In the second grade, I started reading Model Railroader in the school library. After a year of heavy lobbying, I got my first Tyco HO train set for Christmas in 1973. It had a powered Santa Fe F7A locomotive with a “dummy” F7B unit painted in the red-and-silver warbonnet […]
Midday Modeler – 05.04.2022: This week on Midday Modeler, Classic Toy Trains editor Hal Miller hosts a conversation with eminent toy train enthusiast and YouTuber, Chris Raines. Chris talks about his experiences with toy trains and also the hobby’s direction with the younger crowd. Midday Modeler is a new, regular video segment, recorded live and […]
Bay-window caboose Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: $36.99 Era: 1970s to 1990s (era varies depending on paint scheme) Manufacturer: Athearn Trains, 2904 Research Rd., Champaign, IL 61822, 800-338-4639, athearn.com Bay-window caboose features: Separate, factory-installed smokejack and brake wheel End handrails and ladders Clear window glazing Body-mounted McHenry scale couplers Injection-molded plastic body Caboose trucks Available June 2023 Road […]
40-foot flatcar with airplane load Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: $46.99 Era: Late 1960s+ Manufacturer: Athearn Trains, 2904 Research Rd., Champaign, IL 61822, 800-338-4639, athearn.com 40-foot flatcar with airplane features: Separate, factory-installed brake wheel Removable plane load (plane has spinning propeller and detachable wings) Machined metal RP-25 contour wheels Body-mounted McHenry scale couplers Injection-molded plastic body Available June […]
20-foot refrigerated intermodal container Scale: O (1:48) Price: $24.95; eight-pack, $199.60. Era: Present day Manufacturer: Atlas O, 378 Florence Ave., Hillside, NJ 07205, 908-687-0880, shop.atlasrr.com Features: International Organization for Standardization Type Code 22R1 Composite materials sandwich-sides design Picture window refrigeration unit with separate parts Road Names: Cosco (white and blue), China Shipping (white and green), “K” […]
I thought it would be fun to make a citrus train for the garden railroad. I like to reuse broken hobby items from my junk box, and I had several pieces to build my train inexpensively. Certain livestock trains had a car — usually a converted long caboose — called a drover’s caboose for the drovers (cowboys) to […]
Between the years 1976 and 1999, Conrail business trains operated for three purposes: to enable railroad executives to travel the right-of-way for close track inspection, to look at rail facilities, and to entertain customers over Conrail lines to improve business potential and customer service. This nearly all-color, very well done 416-page, four-pound volume covers the […]
Q: The 4-4-0 American steam locomotive The General burned wood for fuel. Why didn’t it burn coal? – Alexander Brennan A: The ubiquitous 4-4-0 model called The General is modeled after a famous prototype – the Confederate locomotive of the same name, which was commandeered by Union spies in 1862 at Big Shanty, Ga. The subsequent pursuit […]
SAN DIEGO – Union Pacific and autonomous trucking company TuSimple have delayed plans to begin driverless truck moves between the railroad’s Tucson intermodal terminal and the Phoenix area. The companies in February said they’d launch the service this spring. But the service has been pushed to the third quarter because TuSimple and UP have shifted […]
Lionel postwar Santa Fe F3s: Lionel O gauge Santa Fe F3 diesels have been star performers on three-rail layouts for almost 75 years. And why not? Every different version of the beautiful models, with red- and silver-painted plastic body shells detailed with yellow stripes and Santa Fe decals, looks stunning. So it’s little wonder that […]
As the Russian military adjusts its strategy and goals following the failure of its original invasion of Ukraine that began Feb. 24, it has increased strategic attacks on the network of national rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) in the west of the country, largely through missile strikes. The Ukraine war is the first since World War […]
