Northern Pacific’s North Coast Limited clatters over the slip switches outside Chicago Union Station at the end of its 2,319-mile run from Seattle in May 1958. The Pennsylvania’s coach yard in the background hosts a variety of stored cars. R. P. Olmsted photo […]
HO scale locomotives Denver & Rio Grande Western class C-19 2-8-0 steam locomotive. HOn3. Denver & Rio Grande Western (Flying Grande lettering, Royal Gorge Route herald, or flared top tender), Denver & Rio Grande, Rio Grande Southern (“Rising Sun” herald or “41” on tender), painted black but unlettered with diamond stack, flared top tender, and […]
Atlas HO scale Trinity 25,500-gallon-capacity tank car HO scale freight cars Trinity 25,500-gallon-capacity tank car. New paint schemes: ADM (leaf logo), Bunge, ConAgra Foods, and Chevron. New road numbers: Cargill Vegetable Oils and IBPX. Three car numbers each. See-through platform grating, prototype-specific details, and knuckle couplers. $31.95. Ready-to-run. Master Line. Atlas Model Railroad Co., 908-687-0880, […]
This Map of the Month appeared in the October 2007 issue of Trains magazine. Like other great American railroads, the Illinois Central was a melting pot of many smaller lines — some acquired through lease or purchase, others set up by IC to construct new routes. This map charts the 88 different names that made up […]
Grand Trunk Western 4-8-2 No. 6040 on the Maple Leaf stands beside Santa Fe E1 diesel No. 2 on the Kansas Cityan at Chicago’s Dearborn Station. Frank M. Rogers I think I was a railfan by the time I was 5 years old. My father had been a fireman on the Milwaukee Road since he […]
The Silver Chalet, once part of the Western Pacific’s California Zephyr, rests outside Quad/Graphics’ Sussex, Wis., printing plant Nov. 24, 2004. Cody Grivno Q I saw a private car named “Silver Chalet” at Union Station in Washington, D.C. It had an odd-looking observation platform. Can you tell me its history and who owns it now?— […]
To our family, the ultimate train was not the Broadway, the 20th Century, or the exalted Dominion that plied our home Canadian Pacific rails out of Toronto. For us, the train was CPR’s nameless workaday No. 25, leaving daily at 10:30 (reading as 9:30 in the days when timetables were printed in Standard Time regardless […]
On a hot afternoon in August 1960, the year before the author began his Erie employment there, five Alco cab units thundered past SN Tower with a 99 freight. J. David Ingles In 1961 my dream came true. For the past six months or so I had been hanging out at various towers on the […]
SP’s Los Angeles General Shops UCLA Dept. of Geography, Air Photo Archives Southern Pacific facilities dominate three views of Los Angeles. Much in this 1934 scene is gone, or greatly changed. SP’s Los Angeles General Shops, the most complete railroad maintenance facility the city has ever seen, was replaced by an intermodal yard in the […]
Gary Raymond Vital statistics 1:32 scale, working knuckle couplersAmerican Model Supply33268 Central AvenueUnion City CA 94587Price: $10/pairWeb site: www.amstrains.com Working knuckle couplers and sprung draft-gear boxes for 1:32 scale Pros: Prototypical, working drop pin; Kadee #1-scale #820/920 mounting-hole compatibility; perfect size for 1:20.3 cars using three-quarter-size couplers Cons: Slightly oversize for 1:32 scale American Model […]
What’s that? This is the summer when you visit every NASCAR track and Elvis memorial in Dixie? Forget it. Your passports are ready so you can take the kids to Six Flags over Cambodia? Put ’em away. There’s a family reunion in Wisconsin and you promised to bring the cheese curds and bratwurst? Let the […]
This Map of the Month appeared in the November 2004 issue of Trains magazine. “Everywhere West” was an appropriate slogan for a railroad that once operated over 12,000 route-miles across America’s heartland. The classically styled 1940 official railroad map at right shows how the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy grew from modest beginnings to become a major […]
