A westbound Canadian Pacific freight curves along the Mississippi River at Maple Springs, Minn. Matt Van Hattem The Canadian Pacific Railway operates a network of 13,600 route miles that stretches across Canada from Montreal to Vancouver, with lines reaching south into Chicago and the major population centers of the northeast U.S. In between its lines […]
AT A UNION PACIFIC yard in Chicago, I recently saw the face of railroading today side by side with that of yesterday. A huge Chicago & North Western Dash 9 was idling next to a rusty, battered old North Western GP9. The difference was like night and day. Similarly, the difference between 3rd Rail’s brass […]
CABOOSES ARE HISTORY. They’re dead, gone, finito, kaput. They symbolize featherbedding rascals sleeping at the rear of the train rather than at the controls of an engine generating revenue for the parent company! Then if that’s the case, why are so many utterly fantastic caboose models making their way to market? Guess there must be […]
Who controls the movement of the trains after the tower is closed? The train dispatcher is the most common heir to the towerman’s duties, but not always. The type of control used depends on the nature and density of the rail traffic handled at the location. Ways to preventing trains from colliding when railroad lines […]
Traffic control systems Running a safe operation is not as simple as you might think. Every train must have authority to occupy the main track before it can begin moving. There are several types of authorities, but usually only one type is in effect on any given piece of track. Maintenance people must also have […]
GRAFTON, W.Va. – Employees of Watco Companies Inc. were notified in an internal memo on April 20 that CSX has asked the Appalachian & Ohio Railroad – featured in the May 2006 issue of TRAINS Magazine – to turn over operations to Four Rivers Transportation Inc. Watco, based in Kansas, had been negotiating – unsuccessfully, […]
I’VE PROBABLY evaluated more than 100 locomotives for Classic Toy Trains, but I can’t recall being as pumped up as when I popped open an orange and blue Lionel box and pulled out a black and gray New York Central SD80MAC. Yes, yes, I know. Despite being a die-hard New York Central fan, I am […]
Atlas HO scale EMD MP15 Here’s a great looking, smooth-running model of Electro-Motive Division’s versatile MP15 heavy-duty yard switcher. At first glance it may look like any other EMD switcher, but this one is a hauler capable of moving up to 42 free-rolling cars on straight, level track. Atlas offers the MP15 in a Silver-series […]
ONLY TIME WILL TELL if Flyer enthusiasts will move the setting of their layouts into the late 20th century. If they don’t, it isn’t because there are no contemporary diesels offered in S gauge. American Models has introduced the EMD SD60, the most modern American Flyer-compatible diesel on the market. Electro-Motive made the 3,800-horsepower SD60 […]
LOCOMOTIVES COSTING $1,000 or more seem to capture all the attention today, so we went down to our local hobby shop to find some locomotives that didn’t have “Rockefeller” as a last name. We found three moderately priced diesels that model three notable periods of U.S. railroad history and reflect three periods of O gauge […]
Broadway Limited’s HO AC6000CW diesel Here’s a powerful model of General Electric’s massive six-axle AC6000CW heavy-duty road diesel. The ready-to-run locomotive from Broadway Limited Imports is offered for the first time in plastic. It features an injection-molded plastic body shell with many freestanding details. The model also has a lot of heft (27 ounces) thanks […]
Broadway Limited HO C30-7 diesel General Electric’s distinctive chugging exhaust is included in this great-looking C30-7 model, the latest ready-to-run HO scale diesel locomotive from Broadway Limited Imports. It’s sold with or without a factory-installed QSI Quantum sound system and automatic dual-mode decoder that operates on layouts using either DC or Digital Command Control (DCC). […]
