WHEN ANDREW’S RAIDERS tried to steal the Western & Atlantic Railroad’s General locomotive during the Civil War, they certainly had no idea how many fantasy “great locomotive chases” they’d inspire in the decades to come. Lionel, for one, has had great fun with the concept. When the Lionel Corp. produced its postwar nos. 1862 and […]
ONE OF THE MOST distinctive experimental locomotives of the 1930s was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s S1-class Duplex-drive 6-4-4-6 locomotive. Originally developed as a replacement for the railroad’s venerable K4s 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives, the big S1, of which only one was built, was designed to be a high-speed passenger engine, capable of hauling a 1,200-ton train at […]
PLANES, TRAINS, AND automobiles. Back in the 1950s, the birth of the Interstate Highway system launched the era of long-distance motoring while at the same time air travel became more affordable and more common for ordinary people. Planes and automobiles were on the upswing, but passenger trains were not. Most railroads still weren’t ready to […]
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 […]
WHO HASN’T HAD the daydream? You buy the local branch line railroad and find a small switcher, and next thing you know, you’re the Commodore Vanderbilt of your town. But if your dream came true, chances are that your business plan (and wallet) would probably call for an industrial switcher, not an SD90MAC diesel. Industrial […]
SOMETIMES O GAUGE products hit the market that aren’t quite as practical as you might first believe, but nevertheless score a 10 on the “Neat-Oh”scale. The K-Line operating voltmeter car is one of those products. The voltmeter car is exactly that: a boxcar that reads track voltage. While the model rolls along, an analog meter […]
THE NEW YORK CENTRAL had many fine passenger trains, trains with a pedigree, so to speak. One of the most venerable was the New York City-to-Detroit Empire State Express. Service began way back in 1891. To celebrate the train’s 50th anniversary in 1941, the railroad upgraded its operation with two brand-new 16-car train sets built […]
FEW OF THE locomotives that I’ve reviewed strike me as elegant. After all, in the real world these were just machines made to pull heavy loads. All the same, I would even forsake my beloved New York Central to say that the Southern Railway Ps-4-class 4-6-2 Pacific in that railroad’s wonderful green, gold, and white […]
AMERICAN MODELS, laboring quietly in the background of the model railroad biz, has surprised us with the release of its new S gauge General Electric U25B diesel locomotive. It’s a dandy version of a “U-boat,” the locomotive that positioned GE to challenge then-giant General Motors in the battle for the road engine market. General Electric […]
ONLY TIME WILL TELL if Flyer enthusiasts will move the setting of their layouts into the late 20th century. If they don’t, it isn’t because there are no contemporary diesels offered in S gauge. American Models has introduced the EMD SD60, the most modern American Flyer-compatible diesel on the market. Electro-Motive made the 3,800-horsepower SD60 […]
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 […]
