ARLINGTON, Va. — The National Carriers Conference Committee today announced it has reached a national tentative agreement with SMART-TD, the nation’s largest rail union. “This tentative national agreement with SMART-TD will extend the benefits established by the industrywide pattern — including wage increases and improved benefits — to thousands more freight rail employees,” Jeff Rodgers, […]
50 years ago in Trains: Bombarding Beaumont in 1948 WHAT a grand and extraordinary depiction this photograph is of Standard Railroading in full and final flower! For the flagship of Southern Pacific’s New Orleans-Los Angeles Sunset Route the Sunset Limited, which is destined to become the last of America’s great passenger trains to be dieselized […]
Follow Rene Schweitzer, Editor of Classic Toy Trains magazine, as she visits the Lionel Trains LLC headquarters to chat with Parts Manager/Customer Service Manager Aaron Fraser. In this exclusive video, get an inside look at how Lionel catalogs and manages its extensive inventory of over 35,000 unique parts, plus more than 2 million on-hand items! […]
News & Products for the week of September 15th 2025 Model railroad operators and builders can get the latest information about locomotives, freight cars, passenger cars, tools, track, and more by reading Model Railroader’s frequent product updates. The following are the products Model Railroader editors have news on for the week of September 15th, […]
NEW YORK — A strike of unionized Long Island Railroad workers has been averted, for now. Workers voted overwhelmingly Monday authorizing leaders to call a strike if a new contract agreement isn’t reached. The strike could have been called as early as Thursday, Sept. 18, under federal rules. Officials representing locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and […]
SEATTLE — At its Sept. 11 meeting, the Sound Transit board enacted principles designed to address the financial issues threatening the system and its projects around the Seattle region. Sound Transit is facing a long-term financial shortfall estimated to be somewhere between $20 and $30 billion, according to local news sources. The anticipated financial gap, […]
In its heyday as “The Standard Railroad of the World,” the Pennsylvania Railroad had thousands of trackside industries systemwide to service. Each needed regular switching, and many were located in industrial complexes with tight clearances and sharp curves. The PRR developed the 0-6-0 switcher, or as they called it, a “shifter.” The first model B6 […]
Favorite travel spots often influence the scenes model railroaders create for their layouts. This is very much the case with Stephen Mayer, who has long enjoyed exploring the sights of upstate New York near his home in Romulus as well as areas in central Pennsylvania. No wonder a visit to Scranton in the Keystone State […]
New York, Kittatinny & Western Alco RS32 No. 2032 rolls through Hainesburg, N.J., with a manifest freight. In the background, another Alco switches the local industries. The action, photographed by Bernard Kempinski, takes place on Bernie Halloran’s freelanced HO scale layout, featured in the October 2006 issue of Model Railroader. Model Railroader‘s Photo of the […]
Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern today became the latest railroads to partner on new interline intermodal service. UP and NS today said they would launch domestic service linking Louisville, Ky., with Los Angeles and Lathrop, Calif.; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Salt Lake City and Houston beginning in mid-October. The railroads will exchange the traffic via steel-wheel […]
LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — U.S. railroad traffic levels have been stagnant over the past 15 years because the Class I railroads were obsessed with profit margins while neglecting growth opportunities, CSX CEO Joe Hinrichs says. Hinrichs, speaking at an investor conference last week, was asked why railroads have struggled to grow, even setting aside the […]
John G. Kneiling, by profession a consulting engineer, wrote Trains Magazine’s Professional Iconoclast column for many years. His column called out perceived problems with the rail industry and suggested new ways of thinking about solutions. Fifty years ago, in the September 1975 issue, Kneiling took aim at the government-supported Conrail, then newly created from several […]
