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Meet Jim Providenza What was your first train set (or locomotive)? Our family had a Lionel train set that we set up around the Christmas tree each year. At about age 10, it moved onto a sheet of plywood on the floor of the “playroom” on a semi-permanent basis. In 7th grade my parents agreed […]
Q: What diesels to pull a 50s coal train? I’m building an “N” scale layout set in the 1950s. I plan to run two loops independent of the rest of the layout, up high, at the back. One loop will have a train running counter-clockwise, consisting of a locomotive and four loaded coal hoppers. When […]
Q: I need some ideas to modernize a club layout. Our HO scale model railroad, which will appear in the July 2023 edition of Trackside Photos, is what I would call “mature.” All the track, scenery, and structures are well in place. We have discussed how to take our model railroad to the next level […]
Track type and uses: Understanding prototypical trackwork and operation is essential to building an accurate model railroad. Of course, strictly prototypical operations and layouts are not the goal of every model railroader, but an understanding of prototype trackwork and its model counterparts is nonetheless imperative for those modelers wishing to deviate from prototype to ensure […]
Sometimes a discussion about prototype railroading can lead to a modeling project. A few years back I was talking with my longtime friend William Phalen in Crookston, Minn. During our conversation, I mentioned seeing a photo of a pile of grain doors by the Crookston Farmers Co-op Elevator. He said the doors were stored on […]
Looking for interesting uses for cabooses? If you’re of a certain age (myself included), you remember when a caboose was on the end of almost every train. Then, in the 1990s, cabooses began to disappear. Instead of a friendly wave at the end of a train, you were greeted by a blinking red light on […]
ST. PAUL, Minn. — On Friday, the day after a derailment and fire involving hazardous materials in the south central part of the state, Minnesota legislators heard testimony on a rail safety bill in the state Senate Transportation Committee. Unlike recent legislation elsewhere, however, SF 3187 focuses more on emergency preparedness than railroad regulation. The […]
BRANSON, Mo. — A series of wheelset and track issues led to the derailment of a theme-park railroad in October 2022, according to a report released by the Missouri State Fire Marshal’s Office. One employee and six passengers were injured in the derailment on the 2-foot gauge“Frisco Silver Dollar Line Steam Train” at the Silver […]
The Nickel Plate Road’s major components were all in place by 1949. The Nickel Plate, formally the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railway, was conceived in 1881 as a Buffalo-Chicago project to compete with the parallel Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (later New York Central) of William H. Vanderbilt. To thwart rival […]
Meet Mark Bottrill In a paragraph, how did you get started in the hobby? Despite being a lifelong railfan, I had no knowledge of large scale or US garden trains prior to 2003. This changed when I saw a screensaver on the computer monitor of a USAF Major I met while serving in the military […]
Amtrak E60 locomotives are an important bridge for Northeast Corridor electric railroading between the GG1s of the 1930s and 1940s to the AEM-7 and HHP-8 locomotives of the 1980s and early 2000s. E60 locomotive history General Electric developed the E60 C-C or six-axle locomotives at its Erie, Pa., plant in the early 1970s. The […]
If you love traveling around the country on the rails like I do, you probably want to know how to model modern Amtrak passenger train consists. Amtrak’s consists vary between regions and train-by-train. For instance, there is a height limit in the New York City area so any train going in or out of New […]
