Marc Horovitz 1:20.3-scale figuresFine FolkAvailable from your local dealer or from:Mike’s Backshop12129 Gay Rio DriveLakeside CA 92040Price: $9 each, unpainted; $35 painted + s&hWeb site: www.mikesbackshop.com Unpainted, cast resin, seated figures in 1:20.3 scale; fireman Clem, engineer Chet, and Miss JennyPros: Superbly modeled figures; no cleanup necessary; ready to paintCons: Difficult to modify due to […]
K-LINE’S O GAUGE Allegheny 2-6-6-6 steam locomotive is the second of the firm’s miniaturized Mallets. Like K-Line’s previously released 1:64 scale, O gauge 4-8-8-4 Big Boy, this 1:58 scale Allegheny is targeted at operators with O-31 curves and tight budgets. The prototype Allegheny evolved from a 2-12-6 concept for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. Lima […]
WAY BACK IN 1965, I showed Joe, my next door neighbor, my prize birthday present: a James Bond Shooting Attaché Case (made by MPC, no less). Joe, a grownup insurance salesman, opened it up, smiled, and said, “Boy, Bobby, you could commit mayhem with this!” Opening the box for the Operation Iraqi Freedom train set, […]
AMID A SEA OF limited-edition, $1,400 locomotives, why should anyone be interested in this modest steamer? Well, first, it is designed to run through curves as tight as O-27 – and there are still plenty of operators using O-27, O-31, and O-54 curved track. Second, the tooling is new. This isn’t a lame attempt to […]
WHEN I FIRST SAW the ads for the LionMaster Hudson, I presumed that it was launched in response to K-Line’s similarly priced, scale-sized Hudson (CTT, July 2003). Not so. While all new like the K-Line Hudson and featuring TrainMaster Command Control, Rail Sounds, Odyssey speed control, and a wireless tether, the Lionel model is the […]
FOR THE PAST FEW YEARS Lionel has been making some very smart choices when capitalizing on its past. Offering models of never-produced items and reissues of desirable sets from the postwar era is especially attractive to many of today’s operators and collectors. A reissue of the no. 2527 Super O gauge missile launcher outfit from […]
WHEN ANDREW’S RAIDERS tried to steal the Western & Atlantic Railroad’s General locomotive during the Civil War, they certainly had no idea how many fantasy “great locomotive chases” they’d inspire in the decades to come. Lionel, for one, has had great fun with the concept. When the Lionel Corp. produced its postwar nos. 1862 and […]
ONE OF THE MOST distinctive experimental locomotives of the 1930s was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s S1-class Duplex-drive 6-4-4-6 locomotive. Originally developed as a replacement for the railroad’s venerable K4s 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives, the big S1, of which only one was built, was designed to be a high-speed passenger engine, capable of hauling a 1,200-ton train at […]
PLANES, TRAINS, AND automobiles. Back in the 1950s, the birth of the Interstate Highway system launched the era of long-distance motoring while at the same time air travel became more affordable and more common for ordinary people. Planes and automobiles were on the upswing, but passenger trains were not. Most railroads still weren’t ready to […]
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, a manufacturer has a brilliant idea for a product that should have been obvious – but wasn’t – to everyone in the toy train hobby. The latest to accomplish this feat is Pride Lines. It did so by thinking small! Specifically, Pride Lines realized that a classic Lionel Standard gauge […]
YOU’VE BOUGHT A NEW O gauge steam locomotive and are checking off its features: Sound system? Yes.Command control? Yes.Coil coupler? Yes.Cruise control? No.Fan-driven synchronized puffing smoke? No. Train America Studios can turn no into yes with its Engineer-On-Board cruise control and its Turbo Smoke smoke generator. We had both installed in a K-Line scale Hudson […]
Kevin Strong 4′ steel through-truss bridge100 Year Bridge CompanySold exclusively through: B&E Junction17 W. Market St.York PA 17401Price: $74.95Web site: www.100yearbridge.com 4′ “galvannealed” steel through truss bridge (#948); tinplate-esque through-truss bridge cut from 20-gauge steel. Dimensions: length, 47½”; width, 9¼” (85/8″ horizontal clearance); height, 9″ (8¼” vertical clearance without track) Pros: Steel construction should hold […]
