THE PAST YEAR has been a busy one for fans of small and inexpensive O gauge locomotives. We’ve seen several manufacturers turn their attention toward the $100 price point. But while a low price might catch a hobbyist’s attention, it is the appeal of the locomotive that sells it. K-Line’s latest entry into this niche […]
K-LINE HAS FOUND a winner in its re-working of the time-honored operating milk-car concept. We first tested the no. K-703-1751 operating milk car with unloading platform. Shortly after, the K-42407 operating milk loading depot arrived in the mail. Putting the two together in a review is a natural fit. First, the unloader. K-Line’s re-working of […]
NO DOUBT, EVER since grade school, we’ve all looked at slot-car tracks and our three-rail trains and wondered how to put the two together. We at CTT have been enraptured with the prospect of O gauge street running ever since we saw the two-rail cobblestone street system by Czech manufacturer ETS/SemafÖr (CTT, January, 2005). As […]
THE LATEST SWITCHER to be added to the MTH Premier line lineup is the Alco S-2, which was ubiquitous on American railroads and industrial operations 20 to 60 years ago. More than 1,400 of the 1,000-horsepower locomotives were built for U.S. railroads between 1940 and 1950. According to one diesel preservation website, there are at […]
IN THE GOLDEN YEARS of railroading, the Great Northern route from the Midwest to Seattle was undoubtedly the premier way to get to the Pacific Northwest. With such named trains as Empire Builder, Oriental Limited, and Fast Mail, the line’s reputation hung on swift, reliable passenger transportation as much as it did freight. In 1929 […]
YES INDEED! Atlas O’s Alco C-424 is another squat, homely diesel that will make a segment of the O gauge community happy, if not downright giddy. I’ve often wondered why some segments of our clan of railroad hobbyists (myself included) are so, well, hard-core about Alco diesels. Oh, I know that Alco’s PA was larger […]
FOR THOSE OF US who attempt to repair trains without the benefit of all the special tools and hardware used by authorized service stations, the brakeman’s riveting set from Carl’s Toy Trains is a long-standing dream come true. Where were you 25 years ago? No more fooling around with makeshift backing rigs and hit-or-miss riveting […]
FOR MANY YEARS, manufacturers have been tempting the once-a-year train-running crowd as well as tinplate regulars with gaily decorated sets. These outfits usually reflect the holiday spirit more than they reflect real railroading, even by the liberal standards of the three-rail crowd. K-Line’s latest addition to the holiday railroad is the no. K-1409 Santa’s Christmas […]
AS THEY SAY, nothing succeeds like success, and the EMD F40 is nothing if not a winner. In the early days of Amtrak in the 1970s, it became clear that the railroad’s aging fleet of mismatched locomotives inherited from various passenger railways needed both standardization and modernization. First out of the gate to power Amtrak’s […]
The Simpsons are the titular stars of the longest-running animated series on television. Their TV-time fun has now come to O gauge! So why toy trains? Why now? Simple. To make money, of course. If Mickey Mouse was the cat’s meow back in the prewar era, Homer and his dysfunctional family are the cartoon of […]
SCOTT’S ODDS-N-ENDS has come up with a bright idea – mate modern LED technology with old-fashioned screw- and bayonet-base bulbs. The result is as successful as mixing chocolate with peanut butter. LEDs are “light-emitting diodes.” As electricity flows through these specialized semiconductors, photons are released and focused through a lens, creating light. LEDs don’t have […]
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