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Model Railroader magazine remains the leading source of information for our great hobby. You can get access to all of the more than 1,000 issues of Model Railroader from January 1934 to the present day by signing up for the exclusive online archive. Check out this classic story from the April 1988 issue. […]
The Menards-exclusive Rocket Freight from Bachmann Trains offers a great way to get started in the model railroading hobby. Model Railroader senior Editor Dana Kawala shows you how to set up and get trains rolling. […]
Follow along and build the CT&T, a 4 x 8 logging-themed project layout. The staff will walk you through the process, including working with foam board, laying track, wiring, scenery, and much more. Track plans using Lionel FasTrack, Atlas O 21st Century track, and MTH RealTrax are included. This package contains 31 pages from six […]
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Iowa Interstate RR no. 715 leads Train ICSW-22 across US Highway 6 in Iowa City on the HO scale IAIS Hills Industrial Spur. More information on The Hills Line at http://thehillsline.com. Video by James McNab. […]
A bit of a departure from my model railroad, but worth the journey to experience the real thing … and I mean EXPERIENCE! Count the rivets … smell the tar … feel the steam … vibrate with the ground … as THE BIG BOY rolls by an arms length away. Enjoy this intimate view of […]
The Cold hard tracks Crystal Lake was once used for harvesting ice. Blocks of ice were cut from the lake in winter, then stored in warehouses along the shore. The ice was shipped in refrigerator cars to Chicago via the “Ice Track,” a 2-mile branch that ran from the C&NW main line through the west […]
The shiny new Pullman bi-level coaches and their weary yellow F unit tell us it’s not the 1950s anymore. This typical four-car Chicago & North Western commuter train makes a station stop in Crystal Lake on a summer afternoon. Its new final destination is Harvard, Illinois. David Popp used a variety of research sources to […]
Prototype operations weren’t the focus of many model railroaders when I started work on my HO scale layout in 1988. But I had a clear vision of an operations-oriented layout that would depict the Canadian Pacific Ry.’s Montreal Terminals Division in Canada’s second largest city in the late 1960s. That was when I spent […]
The layout at a glance Name: Stockton & Copperopolis RR Layout designer: Don Ball Scale: HO (1:87) Size: 37′-0″ x 40′-3″ Prototype: Stockton & Copperopolis RR Locale: California Era: 1895 Style: linear walkaround Mainline run: 240 feet Branchline run: 100 feet Minimum radius: 30″ Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent Train length: […]
Why would anyone model the Stockton & Copperopolis, an obscure short line with a name that sounds made up? Or model this little-known prototype in the 1890s? Most importantly, would it be practical to build it as a large, prototypically faithful model railroad capable of realistic operation and equip it with authentic locomotives and rolling […]
In this video, I show how I set up operations on my small switching layouts, including making car cards, building car-card racks, and running through a short operating session. Video by Steven Strum […]
