WITH THE DEVELOPMENT of the Century-628 diesel in 1963, Alco hoped to secure the number two spot in the three-way race among locomotive builders. The firm, based in Schenectady, N.Y., conceded supremacy to Electro-Motive but hoped to vanquish General Electric. Of course, Alco didn’t secure anything, but the 180 C-628s the factory cranked out were […]
One of the complaints heard from hobby curmudgeons is that O gauge railroading is too expensive. And if you mention to them some of the lower priced Lionel products, MTH’s RailKing line, and K-Line’s high-value semi-scale steamers, you often hear the retort: “Well, I mean scale-sized trains.” Atlas O has stepped up to fill this […]
IF YOU RECALL the 1970s TV comedy Welcome Back Kotter, one of the more eccentric characters, Arnold Horshack, had a unique way of signaling his excitement. He would get nervous and shout something that sounded like “Uho uho, uho uho.” Well, that happens to me when I see an SD40 or SD40-2s. Forget your 21st-century […]
TIME MARCHES ON in both reality and the toy train world. Electric boxcab locomotives often replaced steam engines, streamlined GG1s replaced boxcabs, and finally the venerable GG1s fell victim to the passage of time and were replaced by the AEM7 electric. AEM7 you say? In the mid-1970s Amtrak saw the handwriting on the wall. The […]
THE ATLAS O PRATT truss bridge, in both single- and double-track versions, is an impressive railroad structure. The plastic bridge, made of zigzagging girders with a simulated wooden deck, would be the centerpiece on most layouts. But what impressed me also made me pause. And when I poured dozens of girders out of the kit […]
SURE, EMD’S POPULAR GP7 and GP9 diesels sealed the fate of steam power. But often overlooked is Alco’s contribution in the battle against steam, the RS-1 road switcher. Atlas O has built a scale-sized model of Alco’s first real road switcher, the RS-1. Noted New Haven railroad historian J.W. Swanberg once wrote that the RS-1 […]
Atlas HO scale EMD MP15 Here’s a great looking, smooth-running model of Electro-Motive Division’s versatile MP15 heavy-duty yard switcher. At first glance it may look like any other EMD switcher, but this one is a hauler capable of moving up to 42 free-rolling cars on straight, level track. Atlas offers the MP15 in a Silver-series […]
ON REAL RAILROADS, signal lights tell locomotive engineers what’s ahead, how fast to proceed, when to stop, when to go, and the position of a track switch. Pretty simple stuff, right? Yes, but in real railroading this basic concept also is applied in layers – envision the signaling on a bi-directional main line with plenty […]
ATLAS O IS OFFERING a rugged rendition of one of the stalwart diesels of the second-generation period – the GP35. The EMD GP35 was a prominent and reliable player in the game against General Electric and Alco for control of the U.S. locomotive market. The 2,500-horsepower, four-axle locomotives were built from October 1963 through January […]
OTHER THAN THE venerable train station, no structure says “railroad” in the minds of the masses like the roundhouse. It’s a term that easily rolls off the tongue, even from people who often have never seen this near-extinct locomotive servicing/storage facility. The traditional roundhouse is fast becoming a memory. Modern diesel locomotives are serviced in […]
ATLAS O HAS CHOSEN to offer an O gauge model of a locomotive that doesn’t get much attention. Yet Fairbanks-Morse’s Alt.100.3 diesel, better know by its “Erie-Built” nickname, illuminates an interesting chapter in railroad history. During World War II, the federal government placed restrictions on the manufacture of diesel locomotives. Firms could make only those […]
I’LL BE HONEST. When I saw the box with “GP60” written on the label, I sighed. Geeps may be the most modeled diesel in the O gauge world, and here was another. Then I took the Atlas O model out of the box and said out loud, “Holy smokes, this model is stunning!” Once again, […]
