Kato USA HO Amtrak passenger car An Amtrak Superliner coach and a material handling car are the initial releases in a new line of contemporary HO passenger cars from Kato. Both models are well-detailed and finished in Amtrak’s phase 3 paint scheme of the 1980s with equal-width red, white, and blue stripes. The coach includes […]
ST CONSTANT, Quebec – Once a staple of the Canadian railway landscape linking towns and cities from coast to coast, the Budd Rail Diesel Car has all but vanished from the scene. Those that remain in service in Ontario and British Columbia have undergone numerous modifications to meet the travel needs of Canadians today. Between […]
BRITISH HOBBY MANUFACTURER Corgi makes an exceptionally nice single-truck trolley car. The die-cast shell is well detailed, and the plastic interior is first rate. The car even sits neatly on O gauge track. The only downside is that it doesn’t do anything. No electric motor or drive mechanism. The trolley doesn’t move, unless you push […]
NEW YORK – Dining on Amtrak trains is sometimes wonderful and sometimes it’s awful. However, according to the New York Times Magazine, one Amtrak food item is winning universal praise: bratwurst. The hickory-smoked pork sausage is seasoned with onion, garlic, and spices and isn’t emulsified like many other brats, so “you get more meat flavor,” […]
Rapido HO lightweight passenger cars These new HO passenger cars from Rapido Trains are among the best-detailed mass-produced models we’ve ever seen. Each plastic model comes assembled and ready-to-run with McHenry magnetic knuckle couplers, interior and underbody details, lighting, removable marker lights, and an end gate across the vestibule. The two samples reviewed here are […]
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Nashville is set to become the 18th North American metropolitan area to be served by commuter trains (vs. light-rail/trolley and/or heavy-rail/subway) with the inaugural run on Monday, Sept. 18, of the Music City Star. Tickets will be available on-line starting next week, and commuters who plan to purchase monthly tickets should act […]
WHO WOULD HAVE thought that oddball tooling from 50 years ago would ever become a hot product in the digital era? Not me. But that’s the case with the most recent rendering of the Budd Co.’s Rail Diesel Car, known in railroad slang as an RDC or a Budd car. Ready Made Toys first made […]
Even before he joined Amtrak as a locomotive engineer in 1986, Doug Riddell had been operating the corporation’s passenger trains under contract as a Seaboard Coast Line engineer, and had been photographing their colorful locomotives and consists in and around his native Virginia since Amtrak’s inception in 1971. Here we present some of his favorite […]
The Streamlined Era For the industrial designer, no object was as enticing, dramatic, or attention-getting as the streamlined passenger train. Pulling together contemporary aeronautical theory and function, American designers in the 1930s created a whole new breed of streamlined trains with names such as Zephyr, Comet, Mercury, and 20th Century Limited — names that implied […]
Slant-nosed Metra F40PH-2Ms are seen powering Rock Island district trains, approaching Chicago’s LaSalle St. Station on December 15, 1997. Howard Ande Commuter trains have long been a part of Chicago’s railroad scene, appropriately enough for the railroad capital of the world. Illinois Central, the first railroad west of New York and Philadelphia to offer commuter […]
A pair of NICTD South Shore MU cars, led by #15, traverse the streets of Michigan City, Ind., with train 508 on June 13, 1998, at 1:28 p.m. Street running is one of the highlights of this interurban’s operations. George Fletcher Passenger service on the South Shore dates back to 1903, with the opening of […]
