Harold W. Russell’s illustrations have been appearing in Model Railroader magazine since the mid-1960s. He has more than 150 bylines to his credit. In the July 2024 issue he shared plans for a masonry depot on the Lehigh Valley in Gorham, N.Y. Click on the link below to download Harold’s plans. Use this link to […]
When I was a kid, we’d drive 3 ½ hours north to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit my grandparents a couple of times per year. Of course, that long of a drive necessitated one or two pit stops. Most were at tiny gas stations in small towns. Menards Sunoco Station (275-9288) reminds me […]
Although the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway employed several nicknames — “Dixie Line,” “Nashville Road,” and “Lookout Mountain Route” among them — to former employees and their families, it will always be “Grandpa’s Road.” James A. Skelton was one of those Grandpas. He was 14 in April 1862, and although the War Between the […]
Enjoy a glimpse of 1930s-era logging operations on Sam Foster’s 6 x 40-foot On30 (1:48) scale model railroad. Tall timber and equally impressive railroad engineering abound on this freelanced, around-the-walls narrow gauge (30″) layout. You can read more about the layout in the August 2024 issue of Model Railroader magazine. […]
If you’re reading this, you’re undoubtedly aware of what’s been going on with Kalmbach Media, and how it has sold most of its magazine titles, including Trains and Classic Trains, to Chattanooga-based Firecrown Media. Concurrently, Kalmbach has decided to liquidate over the next couple of months, bringing an end to approximately 90 years of continuous […]
One of the Lehigh Valley’s 37 4-8-4s — which the road called the Wyoming type — swings around Hetcheltooth Curve with a westbound freight train beside the Lehigh River at Glen Onoko, Pa., in the late 1930s or early ’40s. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
Incorporated in 1899, when the name of western Pennsylvania’s biggest city was spelled without an “h,” the Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern ran from Brockway, Pa., to Wayland and Hornell, N.Y. Heavy construction debt forced it into receivership in 1905, and it was abandoned in 1947. Just before the end, 2-8-0 No. 71 leads a freight south […]
The Pere Marquette Railway’s 40 Berkshires, built by Lima during 1937–44, were the road’s last and best steam power. In this 1940s view, No. 1229 darkens the sky as it heads out of Plymouth, Mich., with a freight bound for Grand Rapids. Robert A. Hadley photo […]
Steam from Milwaukee Road class A 4-4-2 No. 2’s cylinder cocks envelops a bystander just outside Chicago Union Station as the Hiawatha begins its dash to Minneapolis in 1935. Alexander Maxwell photo […]
Pickle cars have a unique look, and they served a unique purpose. Cucumbers brined onboard in vats as they traveled from farm field to processing plant. I thought a pickle car would look at home on my layout. My version is loosely based on period photos; it’s not a scale model of a specific car. […]
An unusual steam locomotive, born of wartime necessity, has joined Broadway Limited Imports’ N scale lineup. The Reading Co. class T-1 4-8-4 Northern, converted from 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotives near the end of World War II, mostly handled fast freight, but also pulled passenger and coal trains. In 1945, wartime restrictions kept Reading from buying new […]
In the late 1930s and early 1940s the venerable Lehigh Valley streamlined several of its named passenger trains. This is the John Wilkes, decked in Cornell red, near Glen Onoko, Pa., in 1939. Wayne Brumbaugh photo […]
