Gulf Mobile and Ohio remembered: The “modern merger movement” is often said to have begun in 1957 when Louisville & Nashville absorbed the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, in which the L&N had a three-quarters ownership. Some would argue that three similar 1947 mergers — Denver & Salt Lake into Denver & Rio Grande Western; […]
General Electric Dash 8-40C diesel locomotive Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: Direct current with factory-installed speaker –front ditch lights, $199.99; front and rear ditch lights, $209.99; and undecorated with front ditch lights (Phase I and II), $179.99. With dual-mode ESU LokSound sound decoder – front ditch lights, $309.95; front and rear ditch lights, $319.95; and undecorated with front […]
Six axle comfort cabs on shortlines: Comfort cabs took North America by storm in the late 1980s with the introduction of the design on EMDs’ SD60M and GE’s C40-8W. While Canadian operators had been using the design since the early 1970s on both four and six-axle locomotives, it wasn’t until the SD60M and C40-8W arrived […]
AML large scale three-bay hopper Scale: Large (1:29) Price: $160 Manufacturer: Accucraft AML, livesteamstation.com Large scale three-bay hopper features: Die-cast trucks with metal wheels Road Names: CSX (cream); Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe; BNSF; Burlington Northern (Cascade Green); Canadian National (red); Conrail; and Union Pacific. Four road numbers per scheme. Other exclusive schemes available through […]
Accurail June 2022 HO scale freight car kit Scale: HO (1:87.1) Price: See individual cars below Era: Varies depending on car type Manufacturer: Accurail, P.O. Box 278, Elburn, IL 60119, 630-365-1173, accurail.com Accurail June 2022 HO scale freight car kit features: Injection-molded plastic kits Plastic wheelsets Solid-or roller-bearing trucks as appropriate Steel weight(s) Screws for trucks […]
CHICAGO — Amtrak is seeking more than $200 million in federal funding, along with money from state and local sources, in an attempt to fix a series of long-standing deficiencies, capacity limitations, and how trains from the south and east enter Chicago. The passenger operator is competing for a portion of $5 billion available between […]
Electro-Motive history: Steam was king, its supremacy uncontested, in 1922 when Harold L. Hamilton and associates rented office space at 17th and Euclid in Cleveland, Ohio, for their fledgling Electro-Motive Engineering Co. Established to design, market, and maintain gas-electric railcars for light-density passenger service, the modest enterprise could hardly be considered a threat to […]
ABOARD THE TEXAS EAGLE — “There is no Sightseer Lounge on this train. Once again, there is no Sightseer Lounge on this train,” emphasized the public-address announcement. “You must buy food to sit in the café car; if you don’t buy food and we see you sitting in the café, we will ask you to […]
Let’s set aside the railroad industry’s current bout of temporary service problems and discuss something more important. Class I railroads’ local service — which ranges from OK to downright embarrassing — for years has been where the rubber meets the road. Shippers divert rail shipments to trucks when a local regularly fails to show up, […]
WASHINGTON — Two days of testimony that made up the second week of the Surface Transportation Board’s hearing on Amtrak Gulf Coast service delved into the intricacies of traffic modeling and its data inputs, and made clear both that Amtrak had no role in that modeling, and that consideration of changes to freight operations were […]
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — D&I Railroad SD40-2 No. 3023, one of five SD40-2s new to the railroad’s roster, leads an eastbound train at Sioux Falls, S.D., on April 13, 2022. Photographer Kevin J. Ryan says it is believed to be the locomotive’s first revenue trip on the railroad. The 138-mile D&I, a wholly owned subsidiary […]
Product news Model railroad operators and builders can get the latest information about locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, tools, track, and more by reading Model Railroader’s frequent product updates. Here are the products Model Railroader editors have news on for the week of April 14, 2022. HO scale locomotives Electro-Motive Division SD40T-2 diesel locomotive. […]
