Video: A look at Al’s model trains

Hal Miller standing outside the Model Railroader offices at Kalmbach Media

Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page In 2019 Model Railroader magazine marks its 85th anniversary. To help celebrate, editor Hal Miller provides you with this look at two locomotives that ran on the model train layout of Model Railroader‘s founder Al Kalmbach. Hal will give you some insight into […]

Read More…

Video: A look at Al’s model trains

Hal Miller standing outside the Model Railroader offices at Kalmbach Media

Having trouble viewing this video?   Please visit our Video FAQ page In 2019 Model Railroader magazine marks its 85th anniversary. To help celebrate, editor Hal Miller provides you with this look at two locomotives that ran on the model train layout of Model Railroader‘s founder Al Kalmbach. Hal will give you some insight into […]

Read More…

Presidents that travel by train

U.S. Presidents have traveled by train almost as long as there have been rails on the continent. Learn more with these two downloadable PDFs looking back at the relationship between Richard Nixon and the railroads and George H.W. Bush’s 1992 campaign train. […]

Read More…

Bush funeral train attracting media attention NEWSWIRE

UP_4141_Schmollinger

Union Pacific No. 4141, the George H.W. Bush unit, leads a southbound train through Fort Worth, Texas, on July 4, 2008. The locomotive will lead Thursday’s funeral train for former President Bush. Steve Schmollinger The funeral train for President George H.W. Bush is a rare moment when railroads and railroading are in the general media […]

Read More…

Bush Funeral Train schedule set NEWSWIRE

UP1943onbushfuneraltrain

UP veterans unit No. 1943 hustles the Bush funeral train consist southward toward Houston on Sunday. Zach Pumphery COLLEGE STATION, Texas — George H.W. Bush, the last president who served in World War II, will make his final journey Thursday — by train. Union Pacific says the special Bush Funeral Train will run from its […]

Read More…

Spacing of steam ‘chuffs’

Steamlocomotivevalvegear

A conventional two-cylinder locomotive like this one exhausts four times per wheel revolution. This is thanks to the position of the valves. Library of Congress Q At low speed, the four “chuffs” a steam engine makes per wheel rotation all sound the same to me, but at higher speed I think I hear a four-beat […]

Read More…

BL2s and Pullmans to the Stock Yards

RockIslandBL2s

A pair of Rock Island BL2s, with an F7B between them, led the “Fat Stock Special” one night in 1956. Monty Powell In November 1956 I was a management trainee on the Rock Island Railroad in Rock Island, Ill. A special movement known as “the Fat Stock Special,” which originated in western Iowa, was coming […]

Read More…

Three-way race on the B&M

20181012

Just out of Boston’s North Station, three Boston & Maine trains have crossed the Charles River drawbridges and approach the Charlestown Avenue bridge in mid-1947. From left: a 4-6-2 with a beach special, an E7 with the Alouette for Montreal via Canadian Pacific, and another 4-6-2 on the Boston section of the Green Mountain Flyer, bound for […]

Read More…

Union stations

CSXAC60CWMarionOhiostation

A CSX Transportation freight passes Marion (Ohio) Union Station. The site is now a museum with a restored interlocking tower. Brian Schmidt Q Why is the word “Union” used so often in the names of passenger stations and terminals? For example, Cincinnati Union Terminal, St. Louis Union Station, or Denver Union Station. Is there a […]

Read More…