Model Railroader November 2022

MORE REVIEWS & VIDEOS • Videos • News & Reviews • Community • Shop & more. Layout visits The 5,500-square-foot HO scale layout at the Colorado Model Railroad Museum is a sight to see. It’s the cover story on Great Model Railroads 2023. The freelanced Oregon, California & Eastern Railroad is set in 1975 and features spectacular mountain scenery. To view a behind-the-scenes video, head to Trains.com and click Model Railroader. Under Videos & Photos is the Layout section. Click Layout Visits. Trains.com members only. Prototype railroads What’s your favorite locomotive? Is there a locomotive that reminds you of a childhood memory? Senior Editor Cody Grivno loves the Electro-Motive Division SW1, Senior Production Editor Rene Schweitzer loves the 2-8-4 Berkshire, and Editor Eric White loves…? To find out, go to Trains.com. Under the How To tab, click Prototype…

As I write this note in late August, the leaves are still green, the grass still needs mowing, and the main thing enticing me into the basement is the humidity outside. But you’ll be reading this sometime later in the fall, when the mower is burning the last of its gas mulching leaves that have fallen from the trees, and the lack of sunlight in the evening is what makes spending time in the basement more appealing. The change of seasons also puts us modelers in the train show frame of mind. It’s time to go out again searching for those long-out-of-production items we need to finish – or even start – our next projects. For the past few years, train shows have been hard to find due to the coronavirus pandemic. Finally,…

National Train Show Special! HO scale Pennsylvania RR class K4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive. This HO scale model was one of several items featured at the Bachmann booth. The 4-6-2 is decorated for the Pennsylvania RR in both a postwar configuration with a modern pilot and a prewar version with slat pilot in two road numbers each. The steam locomotive is equipped with a dual-mode TCS WOWSound decoder and Keep-Alive capacitor. It has a metal chassis and uncoupling levers along with a die-cast metal trailing truck. The model is priced at $569. Bachmann Trains, 215-533-1600, bachmanntrains.com Locomotives big at National Train Show Locomotives took center stage at the 2022 National Train Show. The three-day event, the first since 2019, was held in August at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Ill., a suburb of…

Consisting locomotives to run together with DCC Q Can you provide a simple procedure for pairing locomotives in a consist? One locomotive is pulling or pushing the one in front. Stephen J. Szypula A In Digital Command Control parlance, grouping locomotives so they all respond at once to the same throttle commands is called consisting. There are three methods of consisting locomotives, and each has its pros and cons. The easiest is called simple consisting, basic consisting, or address consisting. It simply involves programming the decoders on all the locomotives in the consist to the same address. It’s easy to do, and portable; you can take all your locomotives from your layout to a friend’s and then to the club, and they’ll continue to respond to the same address. The drawbacks are that it’s…

I’m a fan of maintenance-of-way equipment and unusual loads. When I came across a photo online of a Norfolk & Western (N&W) gondola transporting a panelized turnout, I knew I needed to make a model of it for my maintenance-of-way fleet. Panelized turnouts, constructed off-site, are often longer than a railcar. The turnouts can be reduced in length by manufacturing and shipping them in multiple sections. However, even the shortened sections are still too wide to lay flat in a gondola or flatcar. Thus, panelized turnouts are generally shipped upright in specialized railcars, such as modified flatcars and gondolas. Once at the location, a front-end loader or crane removes the panelized turnout pieces from the railcar and sets them into place. Using panelized turn-outs reduces the amount of time a track needs…

My wife, Nancy, grew up in Nappanee, Ind., a small town in the northern part of the Hoosier State. I’ve driven down Main Street there many times during visits, and one of the landmarks that always stands out is a feed mill across from the former Baltimore & Ohio depot. I used the structure as inspiration when scratchbuilding Acme Processing Inc. in HO scale. The full-size building dates back to the 1880s. Counted among the businesses housed there over the years include a flour mill and grain elevator. Today, the structure is operated by Tri State Crush, a soybean processing plant. Based on the roofline, it appears the structure has been added onto several times. Most of the mill is covered with metal siding, though clapboard siding is still visible in a…