A northbound Kansas City Southern coal train rolls through Neosha, Ark. George R. Cockle Kansas City Southern operates 3,100 track miles in 10 central and southeastern states. The railroad stretches from its namesake city south through its hub of Shreveport, La., to Port Arthur, Texas, which it reached in 1897, and from New Orleans through […]
Wearing Union Pacific’s revived wing shield emblem, a trio of SD70M locomotives leads a trailer train eastbound through Creston, Ill. Howard Ande The largest U.S. railroad, Union Pacific Railroad operates a 32,000-mile network (27,000 route miles owned, 5,000 route miles on trackage rights) serving 23 states. The railroad links every major city in the west […]
It was December 2005 when I wrote the rough draft of my story on using GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) to help when chasing trains in unfamiliar lands. Between that time and the time the article appeared in the July 2006 issue of Trains, I kept an eye on the advertisements from national electronic retailers (Best […]
Pennsylvania HO K4 Pacific This powerful HO scale model of the Pennsylvania RR’s classic K4 Pacific is MTH Electric Trains’ first HO scale locomotive. It has a long list of features, including properly timed smoke and sound effects and an automatic electronic system that operates on layouts using DC, Digital Command Control (DCC), or the […]
NO ONE LIKES it, but we all must do it: clean our track. We can clean our track by hand with an abrasive pad or a cloth soaked with appropriate cleaning fluid (careful in the tunnels), or we take the easy way out and let our locomotives do the work, pulling or pushing a track-cleaning […]
THE CTT WHIMSEY Department is always looking for new products, and this cute little American-made “Duchess” 2-4-0 fits the bill. Indiana-based Hartland Locomotive Works has been quietly laboring to build a good reputation in the large scale market. Its goal seems to be to produce well made, fun to operate trains made in the United […]
THE TPC3000 FROM IC Controls offers operators a 1-2-3 combination that’s going to shake things up for fans of Lionel’s TrainMaster system: compatibility with MTH ProtoSound-equipped locomotives, the ability to utilize more than 135 watts of transformer power, and refined control of locomotives in conventional mode. The TPC3000 (Track Power Controller) is not a transformer […]
ONE OF THE MOST often asked questions in the hobby is “Do we really need another New York Central Hudson?” And our answer? Sure! The prototype J-class engines had a clean, well-balanced appearance that suggested speed, even without streamlined shrouding. A J-class Hudson at the front of the 20th Century Limited symbolized grace and style […]
YOU CAN TELL that the holidays are upon you when you see Coca-Cola’s charming polar bear ads on television. These have become perennial favorites and have sparked a merchandise line ranging from snow globes to clothing. K-Line has done an exceptional job melding together the popular characters and the firm’s handcar. The handcar itself is […]
THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC Daylight 4-8-4 locomotive is one of railroading’s most easily recognized steam locomotives. Its black boiler, silver nose with over-and-under headlights, and gaily colored streamlined sides make it a hard engine not to notice. The concept for the new Daylight passenger train was born in the middle of the Great Depression. Southern Pacific […]
THIS IS JUST what toy train folks have wanted for some time: a locomotive packing some offensive firepower. Trust me, the snowplow gives this engine a whole different personality from your run-of-the-mill light steamer. At last we have a locomotive that just begs to have Lincoln Log obstacles built across the track, herds of large […]
PART OF THE allure of tinplate trains is their construction material – sheet metal. So what better way to complement operation of those trains than through the use of sheet-metal structures on your layout? But your choices are limited. On one hand you have scarce and expensive prewar structures (primarily railroad stations and right-of-way pieces) […]
