Is railroad preservation in ascendance, marked by a succession of triumphs in recent years? Or are we whistling past the wrecking ball and the acetylene torch? Is the glass half full, or half empty? The stars of a new podcast might answer “both.” Launched a few weeks ago with the title “Ahead of the Torch” […]
I’ve never been in the market for a private railroad car — editors and writers rarely ascend to that rarified air — but if I was, I’d compose an email this very moment and send it to the equipment broker Ozark Mountain Railcar, there to bid on what might be the ultimate PV: heavyweight sleeper-observation […]
I decided that the three-rail layout was going to have an industrial theme. I wanted lots of smokestacks, guys in hard hats and safety vests, and tall cranes. Because my full-time job takes me into many facilities associated with a wide variety of industries, I already had good ideas and firm plans for how the […]
In the attic of Neal Mayer’s home, he has assembled a group of vignettes, each using trains and structures, vehicles and figures, and signs and lights to suggest life in his native New England during the postwar era. Visitors stroll from one scene to another and then to another, never in a rush, as they […]
More than a few times, photographs in the Kalmbach library have sent me searching for railroads and places I’ve never encountered, and a few weeks ago some 8 x 10 prints lined up perfectly with travel plans. The destination: Mendocino, Calif., the charming old lumber town up the coast 155 miles from San Francisco. My […]
Jack Hedge, a lifelong O gauge enthusiast and talented layout builder, created the fictitious city of Hedgerton for his three-rail display. His layout features four loops and includes contemporary steamers and diesels from just about everybody, including Atlas O, K-Line, Lionel, Right-of-Way Industries, 3rd Rail, Weaver, and Williams. Jack outlines what he installed, beginning with […]
I’m not holding my breath, but the Federal Railroad Administration late last year released a long list of routes chosen for what it calls its Corridor Identification and Development Program, which the Trains News Wire describes as “a catch-all group of 69 potential future Amtrak routes, possible extensions to existing routes, efforts to increase service […]
Readers of the Mileposts blog hardly need be sold on the close connections between the holiday season and trains, especially in memory. From traveling home by train to see loved ones to seeing snow flying outside the window of a dining car to watching Lionel trains race around a department store window, this season is […]
I don’t keep bucket lists, but one thing I’d been hoping to visit one day was the famed Oyster Bar, the historic restaurant that’s been operating in the catacombs of New York City’s Grand Central Terminal nearly continuously for 110 years. I finally got my chance a couple of weeks ago during a short research […]
Steve Metken’s O gauge layout was inspired by a 1950s Lionel Display Layout. This 9 x 17 1/2 foot layout features Lionel tubular track; accessories by American Flyer, Corber, Lionel, and MTH, and lots of fun! Looking at the O gauge layout Steve Metken has constructed to showcase his postwar trains leaves no doubt this […]
Ask anyone who covers railroads for a living and they’ll tell you — if they are honest — they couldn’t do it without the support of their contacts in railroad public relations. Of course, such cooperation varies from company to company, and PR directors I’ve known have run the gamut from obfuscation to enlightenment. One […]
Driving south recently on Interstate 75, nearing the Kentucky/Tennessee line, an upcoming offramp caught my eye, causing me to make a quick turn to the right. “Next exit, Jellico.” Jellico! A town I likely never would have known were it not for a memorable July 30, 1975, steam excursion behind celebrated Southern Railway 2-8-2 […]
