New products for July 2014

HERITAGE IN TWO SIZES: MTH Electric Trains’ salute to the Norfolk Southern Heritage paint schemes is well under way, with examples of several road names available in both the RailKing and Premier product lines. Shown on the left is the no. 30-20136-1 RailKing Illinois Terminal SD70ACe. On the right is the no. 20-20273-1 Premier Wabash […]

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Foreigner

Canadian National grain train G884 heads back east with three CSX locomotives on Jan. 19, 2014. The train is operating on trackage rights over BNSF Railway’s Aurora Subdivision from East Dubuque to Portage, Ill. Photo by Matt Krause […]

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Steel in the U.S. and Canada, 2001

Mini-mills provided half of U.S. and Canadian steel-making capacity in 2001. Their decentralized geographic distribution mirrored U.S. population density (with the notable exception of California), and did not work to the benefit of railroads. The remaining integrated mills primarily sold high-quality sheet steel to auto and appliance factories. Railroads included in this map: BNSF Railway; […]

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Crude by rail

  BNSF Railway ES44DC No. 7339 heads up train U-TNDNSD through East Dubuque, Ill., on Jan. 19, 2014. The crude oil train will be interchanged to Norfolk Southern in Chicago for delivery to an East Coast refinery. Photo by Matt Krause […]

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America’s fastest rail lines

How many places in the United States can a railroad passenger travel more than 70 miles in one hour? This map spotlights those locations, based on the schedules in Amtrak’s Fall/Winter 2007 system timetable and its Spring 2008 Northeast Corridor timetable. (Where precise information was not available, the speeds factor in 1 minute of dwell […]

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HO scale Union Pacific Daneville Division

Name: Union Pacific Daneville Subdivision Layout designer: Pelle Søeborg Scale: HO (1:87.1) Size: 11 x 22 feet Prototype: Union Pacific and BNSF Locale: freelanced, inspired by the Mojave Desert in Southern California Era: present Style: walk in Mainline run: 59 feet (excluding hidden staging) Minimum radius: 33″ (main), 31″ (sidings) Minimum turnout: no. 8 (main), […]

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Colorful variety

It’s a warm Oct., 1, 2013, morning as CSX train K931-01 is coming off the Plymouth Subdivision in its namesake Michigan city with 52 empty stone hopper cars from Lansing behind BNSF No. 4992. In the distance, CSX No. 2741 waits for open track. Photo by Chris Paciocco […]

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Athearn Trains HO scale GE ES44AC GEVO diesel locomotive

Athearn Trains HO scale GE ES44AC GEVO diesel locomotive A mainstay of today’s main lines, the General Electric Evolution Series (GEVO) ES44AC is now available as part of the Athearn Genesis line of superdetailed HO scale locomotives. We tested a BNSF and a Union Pacific version. Both models feature prototype-specific detailing and a SoundTraxx Digital […]

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Kansas City tonnage: 1971 and 2003

Chicago might have more trains, and St. Louis a big shiny arch, but Kansas City is the ton-mile king, with over 1 billion tons passing through the city (or above it, on flyovers) in 2003. That is 15 percent more tons than Chicago. What is remarkable about K.C. is its sheer growth, from 378 million […]

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