Not what it seems A Clinchfield “Shifter South” crawls out of Elkhorn City yard away from the camera and across Pool Point at the north end of the Breaks of the Big Sandy in 1964. The three-unit pusher will stay with the train to Towers, Va., where the grade begins to ease. Ron Flanary photo […]
Type of Train: Diesel Locomotives
Wabtec locomotive remanufacturing program completes 1,000th unit
FORT WORTH, Texas — Wabtec has reached a milestone, completing its 1,000th remanufactured locomotive at plants in Fort Worth; Erie, Pa.; and Contagem, Brazil, since the program’s start in 2015. Norfolk Southern has received 500 of the locomotives since contracting with Wabtec to take 1990s-vintage, 4,000-hp, D.C. traction GE Dash 9 locomotives and rebuild them into […]
Locomotive horns are important safety features
Locomotive horn introduction Locomotive horns are safety appliances installed on locomotives and used to warn both the public and railroad employees. Outside of special areas, such as quiet zones, trains are required to sound their horn before occupying one of the approximately quarter-million public and private railroad crossings in the U.S. Horns used on new […]
Menards Santa Fe O gauge locomotive
Menards Santa Fe O gauge locomotive program is underway. Asking some 200 people to take a chance on this new product is bold. To request they test it on their layouts and report what the maker got right — and more importantly, wrong — takes even more guts. It is something I’ve never heard of […]
Bob’s Train Box Episode 72
On this episode of Bob’s Train Box, Bob and CTT editor Hal Miller have a look at Menards’ new O gauge Santa Fe F3 locomotive and find a lot to like about it when they run it on a layout! Bob also examines the visual advantage of controlling trains using apps on tablets and smartphones […]
Bob’s Train Box Episode 72
On this episode of Bob’s Train Box, Bob and CTT editor Hal Miller have a look at Menards’ new O gauge Santa Fe F3 locomotive and find a lot to like about it when they run it on a layout! Bob also examines the visual advantage of controlling trains using apps on tablets and smartphones […]
News photo: Another Amtrak anniversary paint scheme hits the rails
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Amtrak P42 No. 108 displays a 50th anniversary version of the interim “Phase VI” paint scheme as it leads the westbound Lake Shore Limited on Friday, July 30. The design is similar to one introduced on the first of the new Siemens ALC42 Charger locomotives [see “Amtrak shows off first long-distance Siemens […]
Don Colangelo, Genesee Valley’s ‘Alco doc,’ retires
SCRANTON, Pa. — Don Colangelo, the Genesee Valley Transportation vice president, mechanical, who gained renown as the “Alco doc” for keeping the company’s fleet of American Locomotive Co. diesels healthy, is retiring this month. Colangelo spent some four decades in railroad, more than 25 of those with Genesee Valley, which saw its fleet of Alco […]
BL2 diesel locomotive: An EMD diesel that didn’t.
The BL2 was a mistake at diesel locomotive leader EMD EMD’s BL2 diesel locomotive was a mistake of historic proportions. During the 1930s and ’40s — when diesel-locomotive sales grew from smoldering embers to white-hot inferno — Electro-Motive Corp. (after 1940, General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division) seemingly could do no wrong. With the technical and marketing […]
Norfolk Southern outlook brightens after record second quarter
NORFOLK, Va. — Buoyed by strong volume and revenue growth, Norfolk Southern lifted its outlook for the year as it reported record second-quarter financial results on Wednesday. “We are even more confident about growth for the balance of this year,” CEO Jim Squires told investors and analysts on the railroad’s earnings call. The railroad now […]
Shortline savior
Shortline savior North Carolina’s Laurinburg & Southern was a GE 70-tonner bastion in the Southeast. A pair works Dixie Guano in Laurinburg in September 1984. The GE small locomotive line enabled great savings for short lines that adopted them, keeping some of them running for years longer than if powered by steam. Jim Wrinn photo […]
Detail a diesel on a budget, Ep. 47
From adding grab irons to installing hood details to painting the parts, Cody Grivno shares how he finished his HO scale Atlas Trainmasters EMD GP38-2 diesel locomotive without breaking the bank. Watch all the steps detailed in this video, and then read the story in the September 2021 issue of Model Railroader magazine. […]