The 4-6-6-4 Challenger was the most successful articulated steam locomotive design. Rating steam locomotives is a risky business. You might easily compare engines by weight or length or lists of accessories, but actual performance — judged by the engineering standards of 2023 — is somewhat subjective. It would be an exaggeration to say […]
Months ago, when the MR staff started talking about more toxic chemicals used on model railroads of the past, I had no idea there would be such a list of them! While hobbyists needed to be creative to get the job done, sadly, some of their choices were unsafe. In some cases, the chemicals were […]
Small interior details for a 1950s Streetcar diner are easy and fun to make. When building the diner scene shown in the photo above, I knew that I’d want to include enough interior detail to make the model interesting to look at. The diner has small windows, which meant that I only needed a […]
In some of my early “Sketching with Steve” articles – in particular, “What is a station?” and “Big industries for small spaces” – I admit to having an ulterior motive. I was building toward something. Specifically, I had been thinking for a while about building an L shaped N scale shelf layout in my basement office. […]
Without an ampersand, directional vector, or superlative in its title, the Lehigh Valley Railroad was of understated geographical reach. Its 440-mile New York-Buffalo line was slightly longer than competing routes of the Erie, New York Central, and Lackawanna, but shorter than the Pennsylvania’s. LV’s earliest component dated to 1836, but “the Valley” owed its existence […]
NEW YORK — On a second consecutive day highlighting plans to support rail infrastructure projects, President Joe Biden said today (Tuesday, Jan. 31) that the federal government would provide $292 million in grants for the early stages of the effort to build new rail tunnels beneath the Hudson River to connect New York and New […]
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority project to bring Metro-North commuter rail service to Penn Station via Amtrak’s Hell Gate Line, while building four new stations in the Bronx, has barely begun — but is already facing notable delays. Bloomberg reports Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction and Development, told an MTA board committee […]
BALTIMORE — President Joe Biden today announced that the project to replace the Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel, a Northeast Corridor bottleneck dating to 1873, will receive more than $4 billion in federal infrastructure funding. “The structure is deteriorating. The roof is leaking. The floor is sinking. This is the United States of America, for God’s […]
UP Challenger No. 3985 On Jan. 6, Railroading Heritage of Midwest America began work on UP Challenger No. 3985 at its shop in Silvis, Ill. The main focus of the day was first to move the Milwaukee Road turntable from Bensenville, Ill., donated by Canadian Pacific to the Silvis sandblasting booth where it will be […]
WASHINGTON — As part of their merger, Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern will work with a group of Chicago-area communities on voluntary measures to address traffic concerns in those communities, the railroads say in the final Environmental Impact Statement released today (Friday, Jan. 27) by the Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis. The […]
WASHINGTON — The Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger would cause few adverse environmental impacts aside from increased train noise in some locations, the Surface Transportation Board said in its final environmental impact statement today. The three-volume environmental impact statement, or EIS, incorporates comments the STB received at public hearings along CP and KCS routes in […]
ATLANTA — Norfolk Southern and 120 companies worked together to facilitate 159 industrial development projects along the railroad’s network in 2022, NS said in a press release, with those projects representing $3.2 billion in investment and creating more than 3,900 new jobs. “In partnership with public and private sector leaders, Norfolk Southern is a catalytic […]
