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 2010Trackside 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: Jan/Feb 2025

$6.95 (U.S. Orders Only)

Throttling Up

Ever wonder why railroads chose certain locomotives to pull freight trains? Railroads have practiced multiple-unit train control since the 1890s when Frank J. Sprague developed a system to combine motive power in electric train operation. When assigning power and consisting locomotives today, railroads generally match the horsepower per ton and tractive effort ratings to specific locomotives designed to meet specific network needs. But other factors are involved, and it's not uncommon for railroads to mix makes and models of locomotives when consisting for trains.

State of Model Railroading

Response to the Cowcatcher’s 2025 State of Model Railroading survey was positive and many say the hobby is rolling along fine, maybe a bit complicated for some. The 31-question survey sent to readers across the U.S. in November earned a 42 percent response rate. Questions ranged from personal preferences and skill levels and layouts to how modelers buy and spend.

Joint Agency

Whether shuttling power, moving cars through interline carrier agreements or running on joint lines, North America’s largest rail providers interact. One of the more obscure examples is the Milwaukee Road’s Joint Agency Yard in Kansas City, MO, where the Milwaukee Road and Kansas City Southern coexisted for 40 years. On the N-scale Whitehurst & Pine Ridge Railroad, joint yard agreements in Kansas City and Dallas make sense, allowing KCS traffic to move in and out of both ends of the layout to service grain customers without the need for another yard.

Plus

BNSF posts record agricultural volumes on the heels of a good harvest. A Milwaukee Road stock car with a storied past is now on display at the Galveston Railroad Museum. And a United Kingdom retailer and manufacturer introduces its camera car, the Eye-Choo, to the U.S. And more!