This Map of the Month appeared in the November 2004 issue of Trains magazine. “Everywhere West” was an appropriate slogan for a railroad that once operated over 12,000 route-miles across America’s heartland. The classically styled 1940 official railroad map at right shows how the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy grew from modest beginnings to become a major […]
Jeff Wilson and Robert Wegner This Map of the Month appeared in the February 2007 issue of Trains magazine. Twenty-five years separate these two maps showing the busiest freight railroad lines in the United States. The 1980 map depicts American railroads at the end of regulation — the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 was signed […]
Bill Metzger This Map of the Month appeared in the October 2005 issue of Trains magazine. Rock Island Lines serve 14 Western states,” the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific’s map in the Official Guides of 1964 proudly proclaimed, offering “7,849 miles of modern railroad.” Trouble was, Rock Island’s main lines went everywhere its parallel rivals […]
Dave Crosby and Bill Metzger This Map of the Month appeared in the April 2008 issue of Trains magazine. Delaware & Hudson Canal Co.’s 1826 Gravity Railroad over Moosic Mountain first hauled anthracite coal from Northeast Pennsylvania to New York City. By 1888, seven major railroads and several smaller lines tapped the rich coal seams […]
Robert Wegner This Map of the Month appeared in the January 2003 issue of Trains magazine. This is the second in our series of coal-fired power plant maps of the U.S. The first, showing the Northeastern quadrant of the U.S., appeared in June 2002 Trains. Electrical generation in the South obeys a much different pattern […]
Bill Metzger This Map of the Month appeared in the February 2006 issue of Trains magazine. Mention the Pennsylvania Railroad and iconic images come to mind immediately: passenger trains rocketing down a four-track electrified main line; limiteds scooping water on the fly from track pans; impossibly long coal drags; and mammoth engineering projects, from Horseshoe […]
Jeff Wilson and Robert Wegner This Map of the Month appeared in the October 2004 issue of Trains magazine. It’s fitting that the largest U.S. railroad today, the Union Pacific, was born as part of a grandiose plan — to build the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. From that not-so-humble beginning, UP has grown into the […]
A gallery of miniature conifers: Nothing gives a sense of scale and believability to a garden railway quite as well as miniature trees. When it comes to really small trees that translate well to our railroad landscapes, conifers (cone bearing, needled evergreens) seem to have the most representatives in the miniature woody-plant kingdom. I will […]
Jon Brooks’ L-shaped O gauge layout is loaded with operating accessories from the past and present. The story of his latest railroad is featured in the February 2010 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine, and also the star of this video he posted on youtube.com Sit back and watch the action! […]
Athearn Trains HO scale yard tractor Athearn has recently released the Yard Goats, which are used to move Trailer chassis and Trailers from one spot to another in warehouses, container yards, etc. This is a model that has been a long time in the making and the final result is that it is outstanding. Anyone […]
Jon Brooks’ L-shaped O gauge layout is loaded with operating accessories from the past and present. The story of his latest railroad is featured in the February 2010 issue of Classic Toy Trains magazine, and also the star of this video he posted on youtube.com Sit back and watch the action! […]
SPECIALTY TRAIN SETS ARE NO STRANGERS TO THE WORLD OF TOY TRAINS. In a broad sense, the specialty sets try to target a segment of the populace that might not otherwise buy a toy train set. So if someone has a train and likes it, he or she may show it to friends and pass […]
