x

All about the community of model railroading and rail enthusiasm

COWCATCHER MAGAZINE

2010 Round Up

All Issues Priced at $2.95 unless otherwise noted

2010 is the last year of publication of the Cowcatcher Round Up before we became Cowcatcher Magazine.

OPEN HOUSE – January/February 2010: Gil Freitag’s iconic Stony Creek & Western is a popular stop in Houston. PLUS, a welder’s spark may have started a blaze that gutted the interior of a former Missouri Pacific cupola caboose at the Texas Transportation Museum; Cowcatcher readers pick the best of rail in the region, and the Oklahoma City Train Show takes home top honors; manufacturers are upbeat and ready to move in 2010; and Warren Buffet makes a bet on BNSF.




DEEP RIVER III  – March/April 2010: From the West Coast to Oklahoma, the N-scale Deep River III is right at home. PLUS, the Museum of the American Railroad and the City of Dallas are embroiled in a legal fight; membership and attendance spikes for regional NMRA and Train Collectors Association groups; former Cotton Belt locomotive No. 819, the “Grand Old Lady”, needs funding to get back on the rails; and we have a retrospective on the Santa Fe and the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe rail motor cars.




ALL ABOARD!  – May/June 2010: Austin’s Capital MetroRail has a smooth start to its light-rail debut in Texas’ capitol city. PLUS, the N Scale Collector Convention is growing along with an intense collector market; Amtrak plans to phase out “obsolete” fleet equipment; InterMountain Railway Co. announces a second run of AC-12 cabs; and the Stillwater Central reaches an operating agreement with the Hollis & Eastern Railroad.




July/August 2010: A big wheat harvest and few places to put it offers a challenge for Oklahoma Class III Farmrail. PLUS, battery power offers a solution to end-of-train applications in smaller scales; get a look inside at Micro-Trains with our interview with President and CEO Eric Smith; a Union Pacific freight train derails near a historic East Texas Texas & Pacific station; and Kato releases a N-scale model of “George Bush No. 41”.





<PEAK OF CRAFTSMANSHIP  – September/October 2010: The  HO- and HOn3-scale McKinney, TX, Rocky Mountian Central & the Colorado Pacific ascends with scratch-built flare. PLUS, the Galveston Railroad Museum receives a grant to match FEMA money that will enable a complete rebuild of the museum battered by Hurricane Ike; the Texas Electric Railway was a giant in its day; and we take a look at an ATSF D918 caboose is scratch-built in HO.





HEREFORD SUB FIRST HAND – November/December 2010: Trackside research refines operations for an HO-scale rendition of a Santa Fe subdivision. PLUS, vendors and exhibitors give the first Big Texas Train Show in Houston high marks; construction and weather contribute to the collapse of a corner of a historic M-K-T office building in Denison, TX; George Hollwedel’s Prototype N Scale Models fills a void with N-scale freight cars; and New Orleans eyes federal money to expand its nostalgic street car line.





 

Pick up the current issue of the Cowcatcher Magazine at a location near you or SUBSCRIBE

Current Issue: Mar/Apr 2025

$6.95 (U.S. Orders Only)

Coal Stragglers

North American railroads have hauled coal in quantity ever since the anthracite roads were built on the East Coast. Decades later and despite many changes that have diminished production, coal remains a top (but declining) commodity. While it has weathered shifts in power generation and other factors leading to its decline, coal still accounts for 28 percent of total rail tonnage and 12 percent of revenue. Watch a coal trains roll by and you’ll notice that most cars are painted a stripe or block of color on one end. The color doesn’t matter, but the painted end has a rotary coupler, the non-painted end a solid drawbar. Learn how this combination of couplers enable railroads to move coal efficiently.

Record Turnout

Manufacturers roll out the red carpet at January's Amherst Railway Society's Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield, MA. The show set an attendance record of 27,535 at what has become the big daddy of train shows. Several manufacturers came out in full dress to tout their latest products and announce new runs. At times it appeared to be a battle of the booths, something show chairman John Sacerdote anticipated leading up to the show. Lionel and Walthers did not disappoint.

Spirit of St. Louis

After almost 20 years of top-line service, the Pennsylvania Railroad's St. Louisan and New Yorker were rechristened Spirit of St. Louis after the custom-built Ryan monoplane in which Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic flight. PRR’s advertising and publicity forces wasted no time capitalizing on transatlantic frenzy. The Spirit’s christening was celebrated June 15, 1927, less than a month after Lindbergh’s May 21 landing in Paris. Take a ride on the train in the Cowcatcher's ongoing series, "The Golden Age of Passenger Travel."

Plus

CN rolls out a medium horsepower hybrid locomotive that will be deployed this year across several of the railroads's yards and branch lines. Watching trains circle a layout adds a warm touch to modeling and relieves stress, say modelers. And more!

© 2025 Cowcatcher Magazine | No content from this site may be copied or re-used without permission | Site powered by East Texas Web Services