The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient was conceived to connect Kansas City with the nearest Pacific Ocean port — Topolobampo, Mexico. Although major portions of the route were built on both sides of the border, the dream was never realized. The Santa Fe bought the KCM&O in 1924, then sold the Mexican portions. In this […]
Section: Photos and Videos
A holiday excursion, a Pennsy freight drag, a quiet moment, and other Trackside Photos
Trackside Photos is a showcase for the work of Model Railroader readers. Send your photos (digital images 5 megapixels or larger) to: Model Railroader, Trackside Photos, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612; or upload them to http://fileupload.kalmbach.com/contribute. For our photo submission guidelines, contact associate editor Steven Otte at sotte@kalmbach.com. […]
Model railroad humor: Cosmic
[…]
Akron, Canton & Youngstown action
Akron, Canton & Youngstown H20-44 No. 503, a 2,000 h.p. end-cab road-switcher built by Fairbanks-Morse, crosses the Big Four (NYC) main line at New London, Ohio, with a westbound freight in 1949. The 171-mile AC&Y ran between Akron and Delphos, Ohio, but never reached Canton or Youngstown. Vaughn K. Neel photo […]
Piko HO scale Sprinter DMU tested
Senior editor Eric White puts the Piko HO scale Sprinter DMUs to the test on our Milwaukee, Racine & Troy staff layout. […]
Seaboard RS3 road-switchers
Two Seaboard Air Line RS3 road-switchers work at Madison, Fla., in 1965, two years before the road merged with the Atlantic Coast Line. Alco introduced the RS3 in 1950, producing some 1,370 of the 1,600 h.p. units. Harry L. Juday photo […]
Action at Union Avenue, Chicago
The location is Union Avenue interlocking at the east end of Burlington Northern’s “racetrack” to Aurora in about 1980. Amtrak train 380 from Carbondale, Ill., comes off the St. Charles Air Line (left) as a BN “dinky” from Aurora in push mode heads for Chicago Union Station (right); between them, is a BN E unit […]
Oklahoma troop train
Oklahoma troop train Santa Fe 4-6-2 1311 rolls east with a 13-car troop train near Quinlan, Okla., on Mar. 16, 1946. The train consists of 5 standard sleepers, 6 troop sleepers, and 2 troop kitchen cars, plus a caboose at the rear. R. H. Kindig photo […]
Anthracite hauler
Anthracite hauler Reading Co. 2-10-2 3012 leads a train of anthracite along the Schuylkill River at Tamaqua, Pa., in July 1953. RDG’s 20 K-1’s were the heaviest Santa Fe types ever built. Classic Trains collection […]
Orders at Clare
Orders at Clare At the joint Chesapeake & Ohio-Ann Arbor depot in Clare, Mich., the engineer on Toledo–Frankfort freight TF-1, behind two GP35s, reaches to pick up orders in May 1966. John S. Ingles photo, Brian Schmidt collection […]
Model a boxcar storage scene
Model a boxcar storage scene to add realism to a model train layout. I’m a fan of shortline railroads. One of the many things I admire about these operations is how resourceful they are. I came across an example of this when I visited Twin Cities & Western (TCWR) subsidiary Sisseton Milbank Railroad (SMRR) in […]
SoCal “Blimps”
SoCal “Blimps” Three big “Blimp” cars leave downtown Los Angeles behind them as they proceed down PE’s four-track right of way toward Long Beach, August 1953. Reginald McGovern photo […]