Trains.com Video is undergoing maintenance. During this time, you may be unable to access some videos while we work to update your user experience. However, you will still be able to access all the other great content you love on Trains.com!
Click to see what’s inside this special issue Click the links to see all the online extras from How to Operate Your Model Railroad. Order How to Operate Your Model Railroad today! Switching Watch the video: Operations on the N scale Waterbury Industrial District. Car routing Download David’s industry lists and switch lists on his […]
Model Railroader managing editor David Popp developed an operating scheme for his N scale New Haven layout. Adopting the idea of operating trains with a purpose will make your layout more interactive and realistic. Click on the links below to download the industry lists and switch lists David uses on his layout. Switch list front […]
Ted Pamperin borrowed ideas from many sources to develop more realistic looking waybills for his new HO Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. In the February 2012 issue of Model Railroader, Ted Pamperin explains how he used prototype paperwork to create a waybill system for his Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. layout. Click on the links below to […]
Using a Boulder Creek Engineering digital scale, Kalmbach Publishing designer Drew Halverson records the weights of loaded coal hoppers on a mine-block sheet. Model Railroader‘s HO scale project layout is based on the Virginian Ry. in Spring of 1955. It’s a 4 x 8 operating layout with a number of places that it can be […]
Most model railroaders get started in the hobby with a ready-to-run train set. These sets include a locomotive, cars, track, and a power pack. In these videos you’ll see members of the Model Railroader magazine staff showing you how to set up and run some recently released model train sets. Are you new to the […]
An Alco PA diesel and Berkshire 2-8-4 diesel meet on Tony Koester’s HO scale Nickel Plate Road model train layout. This timeline will help you choose an era for your model railroad. Tony Koester 1950: Dieselization. Ten Class 1 railroads had already dieselized before this year, including the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay; Chicago, Indianapolis […]
Introduction In an article in the August 2011 Model Railroader, I described a method to control yard ladders with a single rotary switch. By simply turning the rotary switch, all turnouts would automatically line up for the selected yard track. The method was based on using a bipolar power supply, Tortoise switch machines, and one […]
Read how Brooks Stover made a three-hour operating session for a 6- to 8-member crew with what seemed like so little action. Adding operations to a model railroad […]
Less-than-carload-lot (LCL) package and merchandise traffic lines a covered freight station dock at the Chicago & North Western’s Proviso Yard in December 1942. Note the light-colored refrigerator car on the far track. Many of our model railroads have freight stations, but we don’t always make the most of their operational possibilities. Especially for cities from […]
Featured in the October 2020 Model Railroader, Thom Radice’s HO scale Western & Atlantic model train layout is set during the American Civil War and a line that ran between Atlanta, Ga., and Chattanooga, Tenn. […]
Types of locomotives Prototype steam engines were used for about 130 years, from the first railroads in the 1830s until the early 1960s. The first diesels appeared in the early 1930s and operated side-by-side with steamers on many railroads during the 1940s and early 1950s. A wide variety of plastic and metal locomotive models is […]
Dispatcher control (cab control)To operate more than one train using direct current (DC) train control, a model railroad can be divided into a series of isolated electrical blocks. A dispatcher then assigns one or more blocks to an operator’s cab, allowing him to run his train in these areas. Memory throttleA memory throttle allows an […]
