We ran the 1935 Twin Cities Hiawatha on our Milwaukee, Racine, and Troy club layout. This HO scale model from Fox Valley Models includes the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific (Milwaukee Road) locomotive and passenger cars. We installed a Train Control Systems DP5 Digital Command Control (DCC) decoder in the locomotive. You can read […]
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Mission accomplished
Author Hartley finally caught up with the elusive New Haven FA’s in Boston. Allan G. Hartley The New Haven Railroad was the perfect pike for a young railroad enthusiast. Station agents and block operators always would take the time to talk and tell me about what would be arriving next. Train crews were professional, yet […]
The Columbus Junction canine caper
On a hot summer night in the early 1960s, Rock Island E3 626 stands at Waterloo, Iowa, with train 190. Ahead 110 miles: Columbus Junction. J. David Ingles Sad to say, this story is true. Only the name of the guilty is omitted. Sad to say, I knew this man—and still do now. It happened […]
Märklin Trains exits bankruptcy
German model railroad manufacturer Märklin is putting insolvency behind it and moving forward with a restructuring plan approved by creditors in December. Under the plan, Märklin will pay 33 million euros ($43.6 million) to creditors immediately. According to German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt, the secured creditors — banks including Kreissparkasse Göppingen, BW-Bank and Goldman Sachs — […]
Florida from the air
We’re high above Seaboard Coast Line’s Uceta Yard and locomotive shop on Sept. 26 1970. Below is the busy former Atlantic Coast Line yard and the neighboring Seaboard Air Line Yeoman Yard that were brought together under the SCL banner with the 1967 merger. The locomotive shop would distinguish itself in the late 1970s with […]
Air hoses on locomotives
Q This is a follow-up question to one in the July 2010 issue about the three air hoses on locomotives (page 58). I saw engines in the ’70s and earlier with four hoses and some with only two. Why the difference?— Dan Mirabelli, Neenah, Wis. A The two-line m.u. setup was generally for 14EL-equipped units. […]
Measuring track curvature
Q How do railroad design engineers measure track curvature in the United States? I believe it has something to do with measuring the degrees between two radii of a circle having the track as the arc length, but I don’t fully understand how it is measured, or from where exactly on the tracks the radii […]
Build a 1:22.5-scale warehouse with loading dock
Download the PDF of this project here. This PDF is formatted to print on your home printer. Most pieces are formatted to fit on a 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper. For larger parts of the plan, you will see “break lines.” Line up the break lines to create the larger piece. Despite our best […]
Old model-railroad books
Marc Horovitz Here are a few of my favorite old model-train books, all published before 1960, in chronological order. There are many more. These are a mix of US and British books. I’ve tried to give a very brief synopsis of each. If you have a favorite old book, drop me a line at mhorovitz@gardenrailways.com […]
Serving the South once again
Click the image to download this interactive PDF. It ’s not likely that Trains readers would immediately recognize the significance of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad. However, the ETV&G (whose earliest ancestor lines date to 1856) merged with the Richmond & Danville in 1894 to create a more recognizable company name: Southern Railway. […]
Domeliners in the United States and Canada
Santa Fe’s premier train, the Chicago-Los Angeles Super Chief, was the first to get dome cars. Santa Fe called them “Pleasure Domes.” Santa Fe Railway Milwaukee Road’s upper-level domes stretched almost the full length of the car, earning the name “Super Dome.” Milwaukee Road Workers service a full-length Milwaukee Road Super Dome from the Olympian […]
Rebuilding RDCs for a new generation
Sign over car shop. Employee notifications are posted in English and French. Bob Johnston This unusual RDC4 originally built for Canadian Pacific will be refurbished for VIA’s Sudbury-White River, Ont., train. Bob Johnston A welder works on an RDC. Bob Johnston The new RDC engineer’s cab includes a computer display to monitor train performance. Bob […]
