IS IT A DEAD-RINGER for a postwar powerhouse – a husky pair of handles riding over raw electricity – or is it high-tech instrument funneling digital strings of 0’s and 1’s to rolling receivers? Lionel’s new ZW transformer set is both. It is a conventional and command control device that allows you to operate trains […]
IF YOU ASK collectors and operators of postwar Lionel trains which accessories they prize, most will put the no. 264 Operating Forklift Platform high on their list. They like its reliability, compact appearance, and neat action. Lionel cataloged the 264 for only four years, from 1957 through 1960. That fact and the fascination this accessory […]
COMPETITION HAS always brought out the best in toy train manufacturers. Just consider the fantastic accessories that Lionel and A.C. Gilbert brought out during the postwar era that represented similar but not identical answers to what the market wanted. Kids loved pretending that their trains hauled logs and coal, so each company created operating loaders. […]
T-REPRODUCTIONS OF Johnson City, Tenn., may be offering the biggest, baddest crane made in the modern (or even postwar) periods. This is a beautiful reproduction of a no. 70 crane offered by Dorfan in 1930. The no. 70 is hard to find, and when you do locate one in good shape, it can command a […]
THE ALCO RS-3 ROAD switcher was one of the Schenectady, N.Y., locomotive builder’s most popular diesels. Between 1950 and 1956, Alco produced 1,375 of the 1,600-horsepower units for North American railroads. Only the Alco S-2 switcher outsold the RS-3 in the United States. The locomotive is a rugged and reliable engine, as evidenced by the […]
I REMARKED OVER dinner one night “Driving a train is really hard work!” I waited for the guffaws to die down before I explained that while I hadn’t actually controlled a real train, Microsoft’s Train Simulator had put me in the virtual engineer’s seat. Microsoft’s Train Simulator is the closest thing to being in a […]
THE MILWAUKEE ROAD bipolar electric left an indelible imprint on the toy train world. The body style was quite popular with prewar manufacturers and it captivated a generation of model railroaders.Oddly, this singular engine was ignored in the postwar and modern eras, and now, on the brink of the Digital Era, we finally have MTH’s […]
TODAY, UNION PACIFIC’S articulated M-10000 train is quaint, in an odd but wondrous, Buck Rogers sort of way. But in 1934, the turret-topped train had the impact of a Concorde SST jetliner on rails. The M-10000 and the Burlington’s Zephyr were the first gleaming streamliners in a world of ponderous smoky-black steam locomotives pulling long […]
THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD had two major challenges: The Allegheny Mountains and a primary commodity of coal. This double-whammy resulted in some of the most impressive non-articulated steam locomotives ever developed. And rest assured, when the line found an engine that “worked,” it cranked out a ton of them. The I-class 2-10-0 Decapods are a case […]
SOME OF THE slickest-looking steam locomotives were the streamlined Atlantics and Hudsons that served the Milwaukee Road’s speedy Hiawatha passenger trains. During the Great Depression, competition for diminishing passenger traffic was intense. Some roads, such as the Union Pacific, opted for cutting-edge diesel streamliners. Others, such as the Chicago & North Western and Milwaukee Road, […]
ARE WE IN THE midst of a revival of the trolley car on tinplate layouts, or what? For years we’ve had trolleys by Lionel and Bowser, but recent months have seen new trolleys offered by MTH, K-Line, United Models, and Marx. Now Western Hobbycraft has jumped into the mix on O gauge track. I can’t […]
GETTING BACK INTO the hobby in the early 1990s, one of the engines that impressed me most was the postwar Lionel turbine. I loved the prototype and thought that this was such an amazing locomotive that I just had to add one or two to my fleet. My Lionel turbines are real workhorses; the only […]
