Name: Engine terminal and car shops Layout designer: Kent Johnson, associate editor Scale: O (1:48) Size: 4 x 8 feet Prototype: freelanced Locale: urban Era: 1950s Mainline run: none Minimum radius: 36″ Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: none Click on the link to download the PDF of this track plan. […]
Land of the giants O gauge brass 2-10-10-2 from 3rd Rail In the January 2010 issue, we reviewed Lionel’s O gauge version of a Santa Fe 2-10-10-2, which in the world of real railroading was pretty much a failure. Today we are reviewing 3rd Rail’s O gauge version of a Virginian Ry. 2-10-10-2 that in […]
EcoBoy, Sr. O gauge vision line GE Hybrid ES44AC by Lionel In the February 2011 issue, we reviewed Lionel’s O gauge GenSet locomotive – a fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly switcher that used multiple smaller diesel engines that kicked in as warranted. For switching or light roadwork, this is a clever and innovative approach to saving […]
First we spray weeds and other things with MTH’s UP Weed Sprayer. Next the call goes out to transport the snow removal train up into the mountains where an imaginary snow has fouled the tracks. See the Lionel jet powered snow blower as well as an MTH Jordan Spreader. A fast freight pulled by MTH’s […]
First we spray weeds and other things with MTH’s UP Weed Sprayer. Next the call goes out to transport the snow removal train up into the mountains where an imaginary snow has fouled the tracks. See the Lionel jet powered snow blower as well as an MTH Jordan Spreader. A fast freight pulled by MTH’s […]
USRA locomotives were born under unique circumstances. A confluence of circumstances led to the nationalization of many of America’s railroads under President Woodrow Wilson in 1917. The outbreak of World War I, which necessitated a ramp-up of American industrial production capacity, and the financial circumstances of the early 1910s led to a liquidity crisis for […]
This is the ultra-basic Lionel Geep of olden times updated with electronics under the hood. No see-through screens, no add-on grab irons, no crew figures, no smoke unit. Everything that can be said about the exterior of the model has probably been said. It is a decent representation of the real thing, but not a […]
Okay, I’m scratching my head with this one. Years back, when I first read the story of the Santa Fe 3000-series 2-10-10-2s, I thought something like, “Why’d they do something crazy like that?” When I took this Lionel model out of the box, as Yogi Berra said, “It was deja vu all over again.” The […]
The evolution of modern diesel locomotives has been continual, and it is always a surprise to realize that something you might have that was modern is now so old-school that it is mostly out of service. The SD35 built by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors (EMD) falls into that category. The “I shot one […]
Bridges. If you don’t need one now, as just about every model railroader knows, you will eventually. And there’s no shortage of options for the S or O gauge modeler, whether you want a steel, a plastic, or a wooden bridge. I recently had a chance to check out a pre-production sample of a good, […]
Okay, let’s give a big shout-out to the Union Army for giving Johnny Reb what for! And one of the things that helped make Atlanta “Hotlanta,” was the United States Military Railroad (USMRR). The USMRR provided strategic direction and operational management to the North’s transport efforts. Col. Daniel C. McCallum, former superintendent of the Erie […]
In the declining years of private passenger haulage, one of the illusions held out for consideration was that the public might be drawn back to the rails if passenger trains ran at or near airline speeds. In the caveman days of the 1960s, high-speed rail was pretty much just finding a way to match the […]
