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Nat'l Train Day, the Golden Spike and Mothers' DayG'day, as they say down under. Today is the first-ever National Train Day. There will be celebrations at various train stations throughout the country.
Today is also Golden Spike day. Coincidence? Definitely not. Today in Promontory, Utah they are reenacting the driving of the Golden Spike. When the Central Pacific Railroad from the west met the Union Pacific Railroad from the east on May 10, 1869 the first transcontinental railroad was complete. On that day a ceremony was held and a golden spike was driven into the track to commemorate the occasion. Every year on May 10th this ceremony is reenacted. Tomorrow is Mothers' Day. This will the 100th Mothers' Day. The first Mothers' Day was held on May 10th (a Golden Spike Day) back in 1908. If you still haven't figured out what to do for Mom tomorrow, may I suggest a railroad excursion? Saturday May 10, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) Odd Scales? No Problem for Hollywood Foundry!Here's a heads up for locomotive scratchbuilders. Australian manufacturer Hollywood Foundry manufactures a line of powered trucks (or "bogies" as they're called in Australia and the UK). Available in both two axle and three axle varities, their Bull Ant Drive Mechanisms come in various gauges from 9mm (N gauge) to 32mm (O gauge) with a number of common and unusual gauges in between. Wheel sizes range from 6mm to 19mm. Gear reductions of 15:1, 31:1, and 60:1 are available. You can specify a number of custom wiring schemes, including configuration for catenary operation.
Hollywood Foundry also offers complete Bull Ant Mechanism kits in either four or six axle variates. These kits include two geared trucks (bogies), dual flywheel motor, and materials needed to fabricate the drive train. Here in the U.S. these products will be a tremendous boon to scratch builders of TT and narrow gauge HO scale locomotives. Prices listed on the Hollywood Foundry web site are in Australian dollars. American model railroad manufacturers, ask yourselves this... why do American modelers have to go to Australia for products like these? Thursday May 8, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) Wordless Wednesday
Wednesday May 7, 2008 | permalink | comments (11) Micro-Trains Line Offers New MOW Set
The MTL Wreck Recovery Set includes an SW-9 locomotive, a crane car and boom car combination, a 50 foot scale flat car, two 50 foot scale gondolas, one box car, and a caboose. MSRP on this set is $199.95. If you didn't pre-order last year, talk to your dealer soon so you won't miss out. This set has me rethinking my summer train budget. Photo courtesy Micro-Trains Line Tuesday May 6, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) New GP-7 Phase II From Atlas O
The hood-type GP-7 was introduced by EMD in 1949 as a general purpose alternative to the popular F-7. The enclosed-body of the F7 hampered rear-visibility making the unit impractical for switching. At the time of this writing no photos of pre-production samples are available. To guarantee that you won't miss out on these GP7s, you need to place your order by June 13th. Image courtesy Atlas Model RR Co. Monday May 5, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) Lionel Out of BankruptcyI can't tell you how glad I am to be writing this post. Classic Toy Trains reported today that Lionel, LLC has emerged from bankruptcy, paid off its creditors, and settled its seven-year legal battle with MTH Electric Trains.
Although most model railroaders today prefer smaller scales than those produced by Lionel, they are still an important source for those folks who remain faithful to the O and S scales. The fact that they have emerged from bankrupcy in these troubled economic times, I think, bodes well for all of us. So now do you think we can get Lionel to motorize their Big Rugged Trains and use them to produce an inexpensive TT scale set for the big toy store chains? Hey, they could also do Thomas in TT gauge. It would be a great way to transition kids from push toys to electric trains, and then from Thomas to real life prototypes on track layouts that can actually fit in their bedrooms. Well... I can dream, can't I? The name "Lionel" is still synonymous with "electric trains" in the minds of many Americans, so it's not like the products wouldn't sell. Friday May 2, 2008 | permalink | comments (3) Un-numbered Kato UP Passenger CarsFor those of you who haven't been following the discussion on TrainBoard, Kato's recently released Union Pacific passenger cars are shipping without car names or numbers. This allows serious modelers to complete them as they wish, but creates the need for appropriate decals.
One TrainBoard member contacted Kato about this and was told that Kato recommends using the Microscale #60-630 decals. This member then found that these decals are out-of-print and not currently scheduled for re-release. However, my friend Ben did some research on his own. Ben found that Microscale currently has Union Pacific decal sheets for both named cars (#60-635) and numbered cars (#60-616) . In the TrainBoard thread Ben also posted this link where you can find Microscale UP decals. Thanks Ben! EDIT: Steve Dunham, Microscale's Retail Division Manager, has emailed me and said that they weren't notified by Kato of this release, and that they have now scheduled a new run of the #60-630 decals. Turn around time on these is 60 days, but if you're buying the Kato UP cars at least you know the other UP decals will be available again soon. Thursday May 1, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) Wordless Wednesday
Wednesday April 30, 2008 | permalink | comments (1) Orphan Works Legislation Will Make Image Theft Legal?I have taken many of the photos here on About.com's Model Trains website. The others I have always obtained permission to use, per About.com's rules as well as a basic respect for others' work. Do you post photos of your layout to share with friends and other model railroaders on RailImages, or PhotoBucket? Do you take videos of your trains running on your layout and post them on YouTube or Blip.tv? If so, you'd better write your congressman/congresswoman. There is legislation in congress right now that could cause your copyright to be forfeited if you post them without paying some copyright registration company fees to protect your rights to your artwork. Mark Simon has a detailed article about the Orphan Works legislation on the website of Animation World Magazine. I recommend that you read it.
EDIT: After posting the item above, I was referred to this rebuttal by Meredith L. Patterson. After reading Mr. Simon's article, this perspective is comforting. If you are interested in following this issue you should also visit OrphanWorks.net. Tuesday April 29, 2008 | permalink | comments (2) Kato News
Monday April 28, 2008 | permalink | comments (0) Display Latest Headlines | powered by WordPress |
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MOW stands for "Maintenance of Way". Here's your chance to add an entire MOW train to your layout in one purchase. Micro-Trains Line will be shipping their 
Atlas is now taking pre-orders for O scale 
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