By the time you’ve laid and wired your track and installed your train and turnout control system, it’s easy to let construction of your new layout take a back seat to running trains. After all, the entire purpose of building the layout is to be able to have a place to enjoy operating your model […]
Handsome 4-8-2 No. 4018 marches away from Chicago’s Grand Central Station with Soo Line train 17 for Duluth, Minn., with cars for Minneapolis and Ashland, Wis., in May 1949. Harold Stirton photo […]
Host Gerry Leone faces a yet another challenge along the opposite side of his recently developed roundhouse space on his Bona Vista HO scale layout – finding another way to hide a train as it emerges from a hole in the backdrop! See how Gerry borrows the “air rights” concept from Model Railroader magazine legend […]
CHESTERTON, Ind. — Mike Noland, president of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District — operator of South Shore Line commuter service — for 11 years, has announced his plans to retire early in 2026. Noland announced his plans at the board’s Nov. 24 meeting, WVPE Radio reports. Noland told the board he had originally planned […]
The engineer of a Gulf, Mobile & Ohio RS1 eyes the photographer as his locomotive clatters across the Rock Island diamonds at Joliet, Ill., in 1951. The Alco and a caboose are bound for GM&O’s South Joliet yard. Wallace W. Abbey photo […]
Master Model Railroader Gerry Leone is back to give us an exclusive tour of the progress he’s made on the famed Bona Vista HO scale (1:87.1) layout! You’ll want to watch this update to see the latest work on a layout that’s featured in the pages of Great Model Railroads 2026 special issue magazine, now […]
SILVIS, Ill. — More than 70 years ago, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific worked from a 45-stall roundhouse located on its 90-acre facility in western Illinois. That building has long since been demolished. Now, Railroading Heritage of Midwest America has broken ground to install a 135-foot turntable and build a six-stall roundhouse on the […]
WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board has approved Fortress Investment Group’s acquisition of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway and Akron Barberton Cluster Railway. The acquisition will be effective Dec. 26. In a press release today (Nov. 26), the board notes that the two properties will join six Class III railroads already in the Fortress […]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former official of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen local in Kansas City, Mo., has pleaded guilty to embezzling almost $55,000 from the union. David L. Scofield, 65, of Independence, Mo., is the former recording financial secretary of BRS Local Lodge 21. On Tuesday (Nov. 25), he pleaded guilty to U.S. […]
NORTH FREEDOM, Wis. — The Mid-Continent Railway Museum received Milwaukee Road steel bay-window caboose No. 02091 (later No. 992091) as a donation to its collection today. The donation came from Ken and Ruth Rupp. The caboose was built by the railroad in its Milwaukee Menomonee Valley shops. It is known to have run in Western […]
We pick up where we left off in part one. Having recently completed the roadbed, track, and wiring on our East Troy Industrial Park project layout, we advance now to… Digital Command Control Digital Command Control (DCC) is the best way to power and operate a brand-new model railroad. The biggest advantage of DCC is […]
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — Norfolk Southern will provide a $20 million grant toward construction and operation of a first responder training center in East Palestine, the railroad said on Friday (Nov. 21). Plans for the training center were first announced in the wake of the February 2023 derailment in East Palestine, and a groundbreaking was […]
