A Union Pacific 2-10-2 helps a four-unit Alco FA diesel roll a westbound freight up Cajon Pass near Victorville, Calif., in October 1950. Stan Kistler Stan Kistler is a well-known professional photographer and photofinisher in Grass Valley, Calif. Kistler began photographing trains in the early 1940s when he was growing up in Pasadena, documenting the […]
Northern Pacific 4-8-4 No. 2662 storms up the 1.8 percent grade at Muir, Mont., in 1947. Few people know the railroads of Montana like Warren McGee, who has been photographing them since 1930. McGee’s favorite subject is the Northern Pacific, the railroad that also employed him for 35 years as a brakeman and conductor, based […]
The world of short-line railroading had a master storyteller in the form of William S. Young. A skilled and perceptive photographer, as well as a prolific editor and publisher, Young has spent a considerable part of his life covering the small side of railroading. Young began taking railroad photographs in 1941 at age 12; three […]
AND NOW FOR something completely different. While I wouldn’t call Ace Trains’ E/1 4-4-4 tank locomotive the Monty Python of the toy train world, for us in the colonies it is very British, very different – and charming. Combine one cup American prewar tinplate, a tablespoon of modern reproduction, two cups of British Hornby trains, […]
IN 1887, a New England railroad added a trailing truck to a common American-type 4-4-0 locomotive to better distribute its weight when crossing bridges. Thus was born the Atlantic-type steamer. The Atlantic’s 4-4-2 wheel arrangement allowed for a larger firebox and improved performance. The 4-4-2s also pulled heavier trains faster than the old 4-4-0s. The […]
I FIRST SAW a photo of a Lionel nuclear reactor years ago in Tuohy and McComas’ book Lionel: A Collector’s Guide and History, Vol. V: The Archives. The reactor prototype looked slick, but there were no clues to what it did or how it was supposed to do it. Fast forward to December 2000. Opening […]
SET YOUR WHIMSEY meter on full! The Park Avenue trolley is a nifty tin-lithographed motorized unit that will look right at home running on just about any prewar-style layout or around the Christmas tree. The trolley is simple enough. It has a nicely designed and produced lithographed shell with a trolley pole. The lithography is […]
THE NORTH WESTERN’S E-4 class Hudson represents the high water mark of locomotive streamlining. In fact, when Superman’s creator coined the phrase, “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive,” I suspect he had an engine like the North Western’s E-4 class Hudson in mind! The 4-6-4 locomotive was powerful and unique in […]
OPERATORS OF STANDARD gauge trains, your switch has arrived. Announced in the 1999 MTH catalog, the first mass-produced Standard gauge switch readily available since the 1930s showed up in hobby shops earlier this year. For years, fans of Standard gauge trains had two choices: resuscitate old products made by Ives, American Flyer, or Lionel, or […]
SHORTLY BEFORE its sale to Great Planes Distributing, United Model Distributors added a terrific trolley car to its Industrial Rail line. Based on a general body style familiar in pre- and immediate postwar America, this snappy little O gauge rapid transit car has a lot going for it: can-style motor, electronic reverse unit, reverse bumpers, […]
WILLIAMS ELECTRIC TRAINS continues to field unique, detailed locomotives that are, in the words of the retail trade, “priced to move.” The latest two engines from the Columbia, Md., firm are an Alco FA and an EMD BL2. Both locomotives come from the electrifying days when the direction diesel motive power would take was still […]
YOU’VE HEARD THIS story before. Big, six-axle diesels meet passenger trains and it’s love at first sight. Big, six-axle diesels take the trade by storm and become icons of modern railroading. Times change and railroads dump the once-revered diesels. So runs the tale of Electro Motive Division’s E8 diesels. Between 1949 and 1953, EMD sold […]
