Facts & features Name: Penn Central at Bellefonte, Pa.Scale: HO (1:87.1)Size: 9’-8″ x 11’-6″Prototype: Penn CentralLocale: Bellefonte, Pa.Mainline run: 36 feetMinimum radius: 24″ (main), 18″ (siding)Minimum turnout: No. 6Maximum grade: 4% Download a PDF of this trackplan! Buy the December 2023 issue of Model Railroader! […]
Facts & features Name: Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad MuseumScale: HO (1:87.1)Size: 40 x 100 feetPrototype: Baltimore & Ohio and freelancedLocale: Pittsburgh, Pa., to Cumberland, Md.Era: 1953Style: walkaroundMainline run: Mon Valley, 443 feet; B&O, 357 feetMinimum radius: 36″ (main)Minimum turnout: No. 8 (main), No. 6 (branch lines and yards), No. 4 (industrial)Maximum grade: 2%Benchwork: L-girderHeight: Mon […]
The American Car & Foundry-built Missouri Pacific lounge diner on the South Texas Eagle offered a quality of food and expanse of lounge that airlines of the day couldn’t match. American Car & Foundry photo […]
Westbound Nickel Plate Road train NC-3 rolls through the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, in June 1959. The railroad, formally known as the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, dieselized its freight operations with road-switchers. As evidence, a mix of six Alco and EMD locomotives led by Alco RS11 No. 568 and EMD GP9 No. […]
A Fairbanks-Morse H24-66 Train Master diesel locomotive shows off the colors of owner Delaware, Lackawanna & Western at Hoboken, N.J., in 1956. The railroad had 12 such locomotives, Nos. 850-861, built in two batches in 1953 and 1956. They would become Erie Lackawanna Nos. 1850–1861 after the 1960 merger with the Erie Railroad. Bob Krone […]
The Atlas N scale EMD SD9 is back, this time with a factory-installed speaker in Silver Series models and a LokSound V5 sound decoder in Gold Series models. Join Model Railroader senior editor Cody Grivno as he takes a closer look at the sound-equipped Burlington Northern sample we received. Check out the sound and light […]
The Atlas N scale EMD SD9 is back, this time with a factory-installed speaker in Silver Series models and a LokSound V5 sound decoder in Gold Series models. Join Model Railroader senior editor Cody Grivno as he takes a closer look at the sound-equipped Burlington Northern sample we received. Check out the sound and light […]
New York Central’s Flexi-Van concept went through multiple versions in its lifespan. This Mark III edition required the tractor to support the container while it was pivoted into place on the car due to the car’s end-turntable configuration. New York Central photo […]
The Fairbanks-Morse H20-44 was another mid-century diesel that didn’t. FM’s first foray into the diesel road-switcher market was unconventional, to say the least. In 1947, instead of following the already traditional convention of a cab surrounded by a long and short hood, the Beloit, Wis., builder introduced the H20-44, and it looked like […]
Twenty miles out of Kansas City on its 187-mile trek to Salina, Kans., on the old Kansas Pacific route, Union Pacific No. 800, a 1937 Alco and first of its 45 4-8-4s, has a roll on train 39, the Kansan, west of Bonner Springs on August 8, 1955. Frank and Todd Novak collection […]
In the spring of 1936, industrial design guru Raymond Loewy came up with a streamlined winner for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s glamorous Broadway Limited passenger train. Sleek, bullet-nosed, and skirted, Loewy’s upgrading of conventional K4 Pacific 4-6-2 No. 3768 captured the public’s imagination. People lined up to see the locomotive, which was dubbed the “Torpedo.” Learn […]
A matched A-B-B-A set of FT diesels leads a Santa Fe train upgrade at Tehachapi, Calif., in the late 1940s. The FT, introduced in 1939, proved that diesel-electric locomotives could perform well in heavy-haul mainline freight service, leading the way for the dieselization of American railroads. Linn Westcott photo […]
