Category Archives: Train Museums

Faller Z 282704: Bahnhof Huinghausen

A new building kit for 2016 was Faller’s 282704. The prototype for this station kit was built in 1915, it features a Mansard roof and timber goods shed with covered loading dock. Today the station serves as Sauerland Local Railway Museum.

The building kit is a combination of materials including laser cut real wood and cardstock. It is a very good kit of an interesting historic railway architecture. The challenges for this kit are the complexity of assembling the main building with its various roof surfaces. Faller kits feature window masks to add realism when lit, the window details in this kit are limited diffusion materials. All in all a very good kit for those with experience assembling laser cut buildings in Z.

All sorts of interesting detailing can be applied including shipping products that can be stacked on the dock and ready for the next train.

Lighting buildings these days has progressed to a great extent with the advent of LED, and Woodlands Scenics offers the solution with their Just Plug Lighting System. Before LED’s only a very bright and hot light bulb would illuminate the masking material of Faller buildings. Now with LED’s it is solved with bright LED’s that can be dimmed according to your preference. Add the long life (10,000 hours) and reasonable pricing lighting buildings in Z is now possible.

 

Steamtown in Scranton, PA

Steamtown in Scranton, Pennsylvania is a National Historic Site situated on the former yard of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad. Building on the original collection assembled by F. Nelson Blount in the 1950’s and 60’s Steamtown today comprises a large roundhouse and 90 foot turntable and exhibits illustrating the history of steam locomotives in the United States.

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Steamtown National Historic Site was established October 30, 1986, it was deemed as the “most flagrant pork barrel project” using Park Service funds by many including Kenneth R. Clark of the Chicago Tribune. The project contributed millions of dollars into the depressed coal mining region of Scranton, PA and without it this important site would not be preserved today. A nominal fee of $7.00 for adults allows entrance to the grounds and exhibits which are sequenced along the spokes of the roundhouse, they eventually lead to the workshops with numerous steam locomotives in for repair and restoration.

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Set of pilot wheels and side-rods awaiting installation.

This is an educational experience, but one can also be inspired by the impressive mass of walking next to the behemoth locomotives including a Union Pacific ‘Big Boy’.

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A display locomotive not to be missed has cutaway sections revealing the fundamental engineering of a steam locomotive and tender.

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Displayed outdoors is a rare diesel for this museum, an A-A F7 diesel of the Reading Railroad.

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A separate museum located across the parking lot of Steamtown is the Electric City Trolley Museum, if you time it right you can take on ride on one of the trolleys for $2.00!

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A rare sight is this electric shunting locomotive, it is part of the Electric City Trolley Museum’s collection and displayed just outside the museum.

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Playing its part with the railroad theme of this museum are the ‘T’ rails used in the parking lot’s perimeter fence.

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A day at the museum can include rides on a steam train and electric trolley. Trains don’t run everyday, you will need to plan ahead by checking the schedules.

In Pennsylvania we are lucky to have a number of excellent train museums, in future posts we will be visiting others including a narrow gauge railroad and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.