A lightweight Pullman-Standard coach that saw service on the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Union Pacific, and others is available in N scale for the first time thanks to RailSmith Models. Built to PS plan 7510 starting in June 1946, these 56-seat day coaches replaced heavyweight coaches on name trains after World War II. A streamlined […]
A Pullman-Standard/Trinity Back-packer 5-unit articulated well car is the first intermodal car to be offered in ScaleTrains.com’s HO scale Rivet Counter line. The newly tooled car features die-cast metal and plastic construction, Barber S-2 trucks with rotating bearing caps, and detailed interior sidewalls. The prototype. Our sample, DTTX no. 64005, is decorated in Trailer Train’s […]
A boxcar built by the tens of thousands for dozens of North American railroads has been released in new paint schemes and road numbers by Atlas O. Part of Atlas’ Steam Era Classics series, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) 1937 40-foot boxcar was first issued in 2004. The model features free-rolling trucks with blackened […]
The 20th Century Limited was the top train of New York Central’s (NYC) Great Steel Fleet. The train made its 16-hour trip between Chicago and New York City overnight, with trains arriving in the opposite city at 8 a.m., ready for the new day’s business. Inaugurated in 1902, the Century became a streamliner in 1938. […]
It’s a good time to be an Amtrak modeler. Rapido’s new Horizon passenger cars are here to fill out your contemporary medium-distance trains. Amtrak started its existence with a hand-me-down fleet of passenger cars and locomotives. In 1988, Amtrak ordered its first new short-haul cars, initially referred to as Amfleet III (Amfleet II came in […]
Rapido Trains is bringing the comfort, Canadian style. We recently received a sample of the company’s new Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW) M420 locomotive, and it’s a beauty, eh? The prototype When Alco locomotive production ceased in Schenectady, N.Y., in 1969, locomotives continued to be built in Canada by former subsidiary Montreal Locomotive Works until […]
A ubiquitous freight car that rode America’s rails from one World War to another, the 40-foot double-sheathed wood boxcar developed by the United States Railroad Administration (USRA), is the latest HO scale offering from WalthersMainline. A war baby. The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was formed in 1917 to nationalize the nation’s railroads, which were […]
Sprecher Brewing Co., a Milwaukee fixture famous for craft beers and many flavors of fire-brewed sodas, is coming to HO and O scale model railroads nationwide thanks to another Wisconsin com- pany, Menards. The model. Menards’ structure is meant to resemble a generic brewery of the steam-to-diesel transition era. The era I listed in the […]
The Siemens SC-44 Charger is built in California. The first units are in Amtrak- supported state and regional service. Chargers have been pulling trains in California (CalTrans, North County Transit District, and San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission), Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin (IDOT), Maryland (MARC), and Washington state (WSDOT) since 2017. Amtrak has ordered 75 similar […]
A Pullman-Standard (PS) high-side 4,427-cubic-foot-capacity three-bay covered hopper is now available from Athearn Trains. The N scale model features an injection-molded plastic body, wire and etched-metal details, and screw-mounted roller-bearing trucks with 36″ metal wheelsets. The prototype. Pullman-Standard introduced the 4,427-cubic-foot-capacity covered hopper in 1964. For the first two years of the production run, the […]
Steam-era operation typically requires additional infrastructure items, such as coaling towers and water cranes, but perhaps the most interesting of these is the turntable, used for turning locomotives and sending them back out in the opposite direction. Kitwood Hill Models offers several laser-cut wood kits for gallows-style narrow-gauge turntables in an assortment of lengths, all […]
Atlas Model Railroad Co. has released a new run of HO scale Alco RSD-5 diesel locomotives in its Classic line. The six-axle road switcher features a dual-mode ESU LokSound decoder, improved tooling on the turbo exhaust stack (air- and water-cooled versions), and factory-installed and painted wire grab irons. The prototype. Alco produced the RSD-5 from March […]
