Beginners Archives - Page 93 of 114

NS ‘barcode’ unit

By | July 1, 2016

SD70ACe No. 1111 Randy Olson Q I recently saw a Norfolk Southern locomotive passing through Vermillion, Ohio, with only four vertical stripes on the cab where a unit number should be. Can you explain what this designation is? — Joseph McCormick, Oberlin, Ohio A The stripes are really four “1s” for NS’s SD70ACe No. 1111. […]

Computer desktop wallpaper from the August 2016 Model Railroader

By | June 27, 2016

Click on the links to the left to download the image size appropriate for your computer screen. The in-plant switcher pulls a cut of hot-metal cars from the basic oxygen furnace past empty slag cars sitting next to the blast furnace. The steel industry is the focus of the latest phase of Rick Crumrine’s HO […]

Ask MRVP: Episode 14

By | June 19, 2016

David Popp standing in front of an unfinished model railroad.

Having trouble viewing this video? Please visit our Video FAQ page This June edition of Ask MRVP is packed full of answers to your model railroad-related questions! Host David Popp addresses MR Video Plus subscriber inquires regarding freight car modeling, painting and weathering, working with scale drawings, layout wiring, realistic railroad operation, and so […]

Ask MRVP: Episode 14

By | June 19, 2016

Three-phase locomotives

By | June 1, 2016

Great Northern Railway used three-phase locomotives in the 1920s. This General Electric locomotive operated with three-phase power. General Electric Q In a September 1999 article in Trains, I read that the Great Northern Cascade Tunnel electrification project was the first and only three-phase A.C. system in America. Was three phase delivered to a moving locomotive? […]

Computer desktop wallpaper from the July 2016 Model Railroader

By | May 25, 2016

Click on the links to the left to download the image size appropriate for your computer screen. The Mosquito Creek Lumber Co.’s lone Climax locomotive leads the “Clean-Up Train” across a low bridge over the algae-covered swamps of Louisiana. Joseph Kreiss of Fairmont, Minn., whose HO scale Big Island Rail layout was featured in the […]