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More than three months after the U.S. Surface Transportation Board rejected its initial application as “incomplete,” Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern submitted a revised petition on April 30 as part of their ongoing effort to create the largest single railroad in American history.

Meanwhile, BNSF Railway and CPKC joined a group of shippers and unions to oppose the proposed combination, launching a new organization called the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition.

Like the initial one in late 2025, the revised application is more than 7,000 pages. In it, UP officials state that they have provided additional details regarding their acquisition of NS, including an updated analysis that uses actual traffic data from all six North American Class I carriers. In the past, merger analyses have only used data provided by the STB. That more detailed analysis also allowed the railroads to provide a more accurate picture of proposed capacity improvements. In fact, the railroads said they would be spending less on capacity now that they had a better picture of what they would need to do.

“After completing the additional work requested by the STB, the facts remain clear: This merger enhances competition and delivers real public benefits that make America’s supply chain stronger,” said Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena. “Our analysis uses complete systemwide traffic data provided by all Class I railroads to identify even more opportunities for our combined railroad to grow and compete.”

Additionally, UP and NS announced that they would not move to control the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. Instead, as a condition of the merger, the two Class Is would sell some of their shares to other carriers so that the combined railroad would not control more than 50 percent of it. UP presently owns 42.84 percent of the railroad and NS owns 14.29 percent, with other Class Is owning the remainder.

UP continues to tout the benefits of the combination, noting that there will be “virtually no overlap” when the two roads are combined into one 50,000-mile system serving 43 states.

But not everyone supports the creation of a single, coast-to-coast railroad. The day before the revised merger application was submitted, the Stop the Rail Merger Coalition was launched to argue against it. Along with BNSF and CPKC, the coalition includes the American Chemistry Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the Teamsters Rail Conference, the Alliance for Chemical Distribution, the National Industrial Transportation League and the Vinyl Institute. Among the group’s chief arguments against the merger is how the last major UP acquisition — the takeover of Southern Pacific in 1996 — wreaked havoc on the rail network for months.

“This did not begin with a customer asking for a UP-NS merger to happen,” said BNSF Railway President and CEO Katie Farmer. “It’s driven by Wall Street on the promise of a big shareholder payout. It will eliminate competition, raise costs for consumers, and destabilize the supply chain that powers the American economy.”

—Justin Franz 

The post Rivals Rally Against Merger As UP, NS Submit Revised Application to Feds appeared first on Railfan & Railroad Magazine.

Review by Jason Quinn/model photos by Tony Cook

With tensions rising and the Cold War firmly in place, the U.S. Army needed to upgrade their tanks to meet potential threats. The result of this upgrade was the Patton series of tanks, starting with the M46 and progressing into the M47, M48, and M60, as well as the short-lived “heavy tank” M103. The first M46 was completed in late 1948 starting the “Patton” series of tanks service lives, which lasted into Desert Storm in 1991 with the M60 variant.

Up until 1953, the U.S. Army relied mostly on the railroads to supply flatcars for their movements. At the time, 50-ton and 70-ton cars were the mainstay of railroad fleets. With the heavier Patton-series tanks, the U.S. Army could no longer haul two tanks on one flatcar as they did with the lighter Sherman tanks of World War II. This caused a logistics issue, effectively doubling the cars needed to move tanks.

In 1953, the Army awarded the contract to produce 650 100-ton capacity six-axle flatcars numbered USAX 38016–38665 to Magor Car Corporation. While not as well known as some larger rail car producers, such as American Car & Foundry or Pullman-Standard, Magor had a long-standing relationship with the U.S. Government. Magor has previously produced cars for the Army and was a large part of military export car production (it was a principal builder of cars for Europe under the Marshall Plan). Magor is perhaps best known for its all-aluminum 100-ton covered hoppers, nicknamed “Big John,” owned by Southern Railway.

The brute-like appearance of these heavy-duty flats with their deep fish belly side sills, along with long six-axle Buckeye truck sideframes, made for a great subject matter for model train companies, as these prototypes were eye-catching and would certainly stick out in a hobby product line. In the early 1960s, this type of flatcar appeared on hobby shop shelves as an HO model sold by AHM. The car was designed and later marketed by Roco of Austria. Until Rapido Trains released this all-new replica, that now very vintage effort was about the only option to model the unique U.S. Army flatcar. That 1960s attempt suffered from the use of Talgo-style trucks and several other shortcomings.

Enter Rapido Trains, the hobby company’s release of this flatcar brings everything the discerning modeler could hope for! From the excellent, and perhaps best representation of a wood deck I’ve ever seen in plastic, down to the beautiful replication of the previously scarce Buckeye six-axle trucks, Rapido has hit a grand slam!

The details are abundant: top, bottom, ends, and sides – no area has been ignored. The bottom is where most of the artistry of detail resides, it’s a shame during normal operations it’s hidden. The non-cushion draft gear and under frame are well represented, along with all the brake rigging. The floor and sill are die-cast metal for optimal weight and performance. A feature I found of interest lies within the car side tooling. The side sills are strategically molded to have a relief area to allow full truck swing. All grab irons, coupler cut levers, stirrup steps, and air hoses are separately applied parts. Rivet detail and stake pockets faithfully represent the prototype in size and location.

Until recently, as I mentioned, the interesting Buckeye truck has been a bit elusive in the HO market. While Athearn, Roco, and Walthers have made this truck over the years, the details and accuracy of these older toolings leave much to be desired. For example, Roco’s truck is dimension-ally too small in every aspect. The brass market has decent versions, but those are mostly Buckeye trucks used under steam engine tenders, with many in that service possessing outside brake shoes… not to mention general scarcity of brass import parts of this type. Recently, Class One Model Works introduced an outside brake shoe version provided under that hobby company’s General Steel Casting depressed-center flatcar. This review’s Magor flatcar used a Buckeye truck with all internal brake shoes, and Rapido Trains has reproduced this truck sideframe well. Plain and simple, this truck sideframe tooling is great! And, in an unprecedented move, all but the late-scheme DODX and Amtrak variants come with both solid bearing and roller bearing variants. Yes, that’s correct! Every car comes with an extra set of sideframes! To be honest, I found it unbelievable that a manufacturer would include two styles of such a sought after truck… but Rapido Trains includes both…

Rapido Trains
HO-scale Magor 53′ heavy-duty flatcar

DODX (early repaint)
38457 199003A, $59.95

Rapido Trains

The post Magor Goes To War: Army Flatcar from Rapido Trains appeared first on Model Railroad News.

Review by Justin Sobeck/model photos by Tony Cook

Atlas rolls out an all new locomotive that further complements its N scale General Electric (GE) four-axle line. The new 1:160 Master Line U33B/U36B release will fill some late 1960s and 1970s era gaps for many hobbyists. Atlas has offered GE’s U23B for two decades in the Master Line, and U25B as a Classic-branded release since the late 1990s. This N scale debut from Atlas provides three U33B road names and two U36B road names. The assembled U-boat reproductions are offered in a $274.95 Gold edition (DCC-sound) and $159.95 Silver edition (DC with EC24 connector and factory-installed speaker).

Let’s learn about the prototype, Penn Central (PC) 2937, and have a look at this new Master Line locomotive model and its enhanced features.

GE’s Universal series, with a “U” designation leading the labeling, U33B and U36B, might represent the biggest leap for the builder in the early second generation diesel era horsepower race, jumping from 2,500-hp of the debut U25B model up to 3,000-hp for the U33B and 3,600-hp for the U36B. Only four roads rostered the 137 U33Bs built between 1967 and 1970, which spawned the familiar winged rear radiator design appearance that continues to this day on GE units. Weighing in at 270,000 pounds and 60’2” long, U33B and U36B locomotives rode on AAR Type-B and traded-in Blomberg trucks (depending on the buyer). The Electro-Motive Blomberg trucks were modified to accept GE’s 752-type traction motors.

ABOVE: Penn Central 2916 in October 1970. General Electric’s four-axle U33B found its stronghold on Penn Central roster. New York Central started the collection with two units delivered ahead of the 1968 Penn Central startup. Penn Central’s more than 80-unit fleet dwarfed rival collections operating for Rock Island and Seaboard Coast Line. —Photographer unknown, Jason Quinn Collection 

Penn Central (and successor Conrail) rostered most of the U33Bs (including two delivered to New York Central before the 1968 Penn Central merger). Those New York Central U33Bs received 2858 and 2859 road numbers, while units arriving after the merger were PC 2890–2970. Rock Island bought 25 (wearing their maroon and yellow scheme with white speed lettering), and Seaboard Coast Line (SCL) purchased 29 units. Three roads rostered GE’s output of 125 externally similarly appearing U36B (built between 1969 and 1975). They were largely sequestered to the East Coast region of the U.S., split between Auto-Train Corporation, Conrail, and Seaboard Coast Line.

The brightest of this U-boat bunch was SCL U36B 1776 in its bold Bicentennial colors, followed by Auto-Train’s distinctively 1970s scheme with white, red, and unique shade of fuchsia (purple trucks were all the rage back then), and some of the Rock Island units made it to the bankruptcy blue and white scheme. Secondhand owners included Conrail, Boston & Maine (later Guilford Transportation), and Reading & Northern, a regional railroad in northeastern Pennsylvania. CSX 7764 is assumed to be the last remaining U36B (built as SCL 1776), and it was fortuitously set aside as a first responder training aid, used as part of the Massachusetts Call Volunteer trainset. It is preserved among a diverse and unique collection of other GE products at the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, Pa., not far from the Erie complex where many GE locomotives were built for decades.

Penn Central 2937 was built in December 1968 (serial number 36950 and part of order 1411), delivered in the scheme Atlas portrays on its model. This basic, but sharp look, con-trasted yellow step edges and handrails against a solid dark carbody color with white lettering and PC logo. There is quite a bit of controversy about Penn Central locomotive colors – Brunswick Green, Dark Green Locomotive Enamel (DGLE), or shoe polish black. Having not seen anything but NS 1073 (PC Heritage unit) in person myself, this is a fun topic, and I consider myself to have a good color judgement and film or color corrected digital photos may shift and not provide a true basis…

Atlas Model Railroad Co.
N-scale Master Line Silver
U33B diesel locomotive standard DC

Penn Central 2937
40 005 942, $159.95
Atlas Model Railroad Co. 

The post A New N Scale U-Boat from Atlas Model Railroad Co. appeared first on Model Railroad News.

Review by Joe Bohannon/model photos by Tony Cook

Roka Prototype Models released their 16,000-gallon GATC tank cars in an assortment of fascinating paint schemes and services. Roka has been dedicated to producing accurate, well researched products and these tank cars are no different.

What is interesting about this run of cars originally built in 1949 for Santa Fe; Northern Pacific; and Spokane, Portland & Pacific is Roka examples of these cars lasting into more modern times. These cars had a service life that extended into railroad company service, such as providing locomotive shop needs like lubricating oils, solvents, and diesel fuel. Some found service in maintenance-of-way, providing water or herbicides for vegetation and weed spraying. But the truly unique addition to this release is the water fire protection cars with included hose reel and pump detail.

Roka provided an assortment of these various cars with all samples including interesting labeling applied, some with unique color bands for their intended service, and a few included FRA 224 regulation stripes, making these cars suitable for use after 2005.

Burlington Northern 973371 is a former Northern Pacific car that found its way onto BN’s roster through the 1970 merger. A striking feature of this car is the all-white body and red lettering indicating its operating base and use as a Seattle Fire Car. The inclusion of the fire hose, pump, and battery detail further proves its intended use. The model also features roller bearings and FRA stripes.

Montana Rail Link 100011 is an example of a car that was built for Northern Pacific. A neat detail included is the previous NP number of 102011 on the frame, a reporting mark Montana Rail Link missed when they patched the car. There is labeling on the dome indicating this car is in locomotive lube oil service. Lube oil is what most would think of as motor oil, but has higher viscosity and additives to serve it better in heavy duty diesel engines. The model features metal walkway and friction bearing trucks. The faded blue MRL patch and FRA stripes make it a nice car for contemporary models to add.

Santa Fe 98195 is an example of a solvent car. Solvents are strong parts cleaners used in locomotive shops. Santa Fe applied a yellow dome and a yellow band outlined in red for such a service. The model features metal walkways, friction bearing trucks, and a nice addition of “flammable” placards already installed. Santa Fe 189238 represents a car transferred to maintenance-of-way service in the 1980s. The sample is painted silver and features a label for domestic water. Water has many uses in MOW operations, including cleaning, cooking, and drinking by track gangs in remote areas. The model features removed walkways and roller bearing trucks.

Santa Fe 209886 is another silver car found in MOW use. The car’s labeling shows its use as providing vegetation control. Railroads constantly battle mother nature as she attempts to reclaim the railroad right of way and as a result, railroads spray herbicides along the tracks to prevent the growth of weeds. The model also features removed walkways and roller bearing trucks.

Santa Fe 189238 is an exciting addition to the release. It also uses the color band markings Santa Fe adopted. The gray banding indicates the car is used for domestic water, but more importantly, the large white panel on the car side clears up any confusion of what this water is used for. Written in large red font “Water Car Fire Service.” Such a car would have served with rail grinders, which throw sparks and potentially start fires as it works. However, more often, BNSF stages these types of cars in areas prone to forest fires and are deployed to protect the track from such blazes. The model features an all-new detail addition of a fire hose reel, pump, and battery box mounted on one side of the car. It has roller bearing trucks and FRA stripes.

The 16,000-gallon GATC cars were an all-welded body that has stood the test of time and has provided railroads with years of service. These tank cars often helped keep locomotives rolling and tracks open for business. This group of HO-scale Roka Prototype Models arrived intact, with no detail loss, protected in a snug clam shell in a distinctive yellow outer box. These 1:87 models are very well detailed, meticulously researched for accurate appearance, and feature crisp, legible lettering on smooth paint.

Roka’s tank car miniatures feature roller bearing trucks and possess spinning bearing caps, with spare caps included in the packaging. Their weight (near 7 oz.), metal wheels, and Kadee metal couplers make them strong runners on your layout; while their unique paint and lettering make them conversation pieces. Check Roka’s website or a participating hobby dealer for more information.

Roka Prototype Models
HO Scale General American Tank Car

Burlington Northern
Seattle Fire Car with hose
RPM 192, $69.95

Montana Rail Link 100011
Lube Oil Car
RPM 162, $64.95

Santa Fe 98195
LIX 239 Solvent Car
RPM 146, $64.95

Santa Fe 189238
MOW Service Car – silver
RPM 152, $64.95

Santa Fe 209886
Vegetation Control Car
RPM 160, $64.95

Santa Fe 189238
Water Fire Service with hose
RPM 186, $64.95

Roka Prototype Models

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