We were recently asked by Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine to offer insight into ExactRail’s decision to be consumer-direct. Beginning on May 1, 2012, releases from ExactRail will be available exclusively from exactrail.com. If you are interested in the back story to this decision, we invite you to listen:

We have taken a strong position. It is one that will allow ExactRail to continue raising the bar.

Best regards,

Model Railroading is a diverse hobby: enthusiasts enjoy history—when it’s railroad history, photography when it’s railroad photography, road trips—when it’s chasing trains, and many other things all on account of the hobby. Now, it can be said that some enthusiasts enjoy skydiving—when skydiving is an opportunity to railfan Union Pacific’s Riverdale Yard near Ogden, UT.

My brother and I began skydiving together. In the last two years, I haven’t had the disposable time that I once had. Yet, my brother is persistent, and he always finds creative ways to persuade me to get out of the plane at thirteen thousand feet. Knowing my real passion, this is his most compelling argument to date.

For anyone who needs to study a track plan or a new view on scenery, may I make a suggestion?

Happy Railroading!

ExactRail is proud to have partnered with the Amherst Railway Society (ARS) to produce the 2012 commemorative car for the ARS Railroad Hobby Show!

The ARS 2012 Commemorative Car is ExactRail's all-new Thrall 2743 Gondola. With models available in HO and N-scale, the Amherst commemorative car is available only at the Railroad Hobby Show in Springfield, MA!

Regarding our partnership with the Amherst Railway Society, John Sacerdote, Show Director Railroad Hobby Show had the following to say,

"The Amherst Railway Society Commemorative Car has a life of its own. We owe it to ExactRail. The demand for cars continues to grow as, for the first time ever, we are asked about the car well before the Show opens. Comments about the quality of the car are numerous and our response is simply that we have certainly found the right partner: our friends at ExactRail. In fact, we have already decided that ExactRail will be doing the 2013 car as well! It was not a hard decision. The entire process from design to receipt of the cars is a snap. We see this as a long term relationship and we look forward to seeing ExactRail at our 2012 event."

We are proud to have partnered with an organization that offers proceeds to benefit the Baystate Health Foundation and the Baystate Children's Hospital. Thank you to Amherst Railway Society for organizing a successful show that benefits others.

HO Scale Thrall 2743 Gondola (Click on an image to see it full-size.)
N Scale Thrall 2743 Gondola (Click on an image to see it full-size.)

Come and visit ExactRail at the show and see our new announcements!

ExactRail, Booth #39, Better Living Center (BLC)
Eastern States Exposition Fairgrounds
1305 Memorial Avenue
West Springfield MA 01089

We look forward to seeing you at the show!

With respect to N-scale, it has been our opinion that the detail of N-scale rollingstock is most compromised by the weight and dimension of the draft boxes. With my oversight of product development, one of our first projects was to offer N-scale modelers something better. The N-scale Trinity 64' TRINCool reefer is the first to include ExactRail's N-scale body mounted draft boxes! These draft boxes approach scale dimensions more closely than any other N-scale draft box of which we are aware. This is just the beginning.

In that spirit, ExactRail's N-scale Trinity Reefer is paving the way for a host of additional features which are also unprecedented. These features include separately applied coupler cut-levers and wire grab irons on the etched metal reefer platform.

ExactRail is proud of our new N-scale Trinity 64' TRINCool reefer. By paving the way with these innovations, it is our hope that N-scale will never be the same.

Click on an image to see it full-size
Body Mounted Draft Box	Seamless tooling, machined in the United States	Accurately rendered UP Medallion	Accurate height & weight of reporting marks and road numbers	Etched metal platform, coupler cut levers & separately applied wire grabs

Best regards,

As I have mentioned elsewhere on our blog, l model the Union Pacific through Nevada's Meadow Valley Wash and Clover Creek Canyon. When Union Pacific's 844 steam locomotive passed through the Wash in November, I needed no further incentive to return to this area which has me so fascinated.

Please enjoy the above video from our trip. It is a pleasure to share a part of railroading so near to my personal interests.

By the way, the station is in Caliente, NV. This is a beautiful Mission-style depot, characteristic of similarly-styled depots on UP's LA&SL. Like the station in Milford, Utah and the club house in Kelso, California--see blog, these structures are a true oasis in the massive desert expanse.

Best regards,

ExactRail made their debut at the 40th anniversary of Trainfest this year. The show brought in a total number of 23,764 participants breaking its all-time event attendance record!

We were fortunate enough to be able to meet many of these show goers and display many of our upcoming products which were unveiled at the show!

• B&O Wagontop Box Car (Available Now!)
• Trinity 50' Hy-Cube Box Car: TTX (Available Now!)
• N Scale, Trinity TRINCool 64' Reefer
• P-S 5344 Box Car
• Thrall 2244 Gondola
• Evans-USRE 5277 Single Door Box Car (Early)

On top of that, ExactRail was awarded the Trainfest 2011 40th Anniversary Committee Award - HMA for an "interactive display of detailed model railroad equipment."

Thank you for all those that helped make our first Trainfest a success. We look forward to being a part of this great show in the future.

Reintroducing N-scale!

The best prospect of directing product development is the opportunity to raise the bar. ExactRail has adopted a new set of standards for all of ExactRail's N-scale models. We believe that we can offer something better.

With the upcoming announcement of the Trinity 64' TRINCool Reefer, ExactRail will introduce the all-new "scale" draft box. Better than anything we know, ExactRail's N-scale draft box best approaches the dimensions of an actual draft box–better than anything else on the market. This innovation is exclusive to ExactRail, and it will be available on all ExactRail N-scale models going forward.

Inspired by this innovation, ExactRail's Trinity 64' TRINCool Reefer will also feature wire grabs on an etched-metal refrigerator platform and wire coupler cut levers!

Please watch for our N-scale Trinity 64' TRINCool Reefer announcement! Then watch what ExactRail can do for N-scale.

The desire for innovation is at the heart of ExactRail.

ExactRail is attending the Railroad Prototype Modelers (RPM) Conference in Lisle, Illinois. Blaine Hadfield, Vice President of Product, will give insight into ExactRail today and going forward. Blaine will be speaking on Friday at 4:00 p.m. and again on Saturday at 2:00 p.m. We hope to have your attendance, and we very much look forward to showing our support of Railroad Prototype Modelers Conference.

While returning from the Western Prototype Modelers meet, my wife and I detoured to visit locations related to my personal modeling interests, the Meadow Valley Wash and the town of Pioche, Nevada.

The Meadow Valley Wash is remarkable. It is a narrowing into which over 5,000 square miles of desert drain. In the early years of the railroad, a flood-embattled Union Pacific concluded that there is no safe passage insofar as there were rails in Meadow Valley Wash, and in December of 1909, railroad officers demanded that a new route be surveyed through the desert. However, two months later, it was determined that there was nowhere else to go. With few options, the railroad retaliated in the only way possible--by barricading itself further up the canyon walls of the wash.

In 2011, the evidence that these challenges are ongoing was strewn throughout Rainbow Canyon. While on the road from Elgin, NV. to Caliente, NV., our car barely forded recent floodwaters, debris was strewn on even high ground, and riprap was displaced far into the stream banks. And, after 100 years, the railroad manages on.

© Photo Courtesy of Blaine Hadfield

Poiche, NV. is an interesting place. Notorious for being one of the most dangerous western towns of its era, 72 people were killed in Pioche before a single person died of natural causes. For a three month period in the 1870s, the death rate was nearly equivalent to a person murdered each day. However, in addition to lawlessness, Pioche was also center to a number of mining railroads. Pictured below is ex-CNW mogul, No. 279, operating for the Pioche Transportation Company. This train is on the 15 mile, former Pioche and Bullionville line with cars from the Bristol Silver Mines, circa. 1938. Although the 1957 decline of metal prices closed many of the mines surrounding Pioche, perlite traffic kept the Pioche branch until 1984--late for a branch of its kind--when it was officially abandoned by the Union Pacific.

ExactRail attended the Western Prototype Modelers (WPM) Meet in San Bernardino, CA. With our attendance at the show, we showcased samples of two all-new models, the Evans 5277 Boxcar and the Pullman-Standard (P-S) 5344 Boxcar.

The Evans 5277 Boxcar will be available in five paint schemes: Burlington Northern (BN), Louisiana Midland (LOAM), Rock Island (ROCK), Lake Erie, Franklin & Clarion Railroad Company (LEF), Railbox (RBOX).

The P-S 5344 will be available in six paint schemes: Bangor and Aroostook (BAR), Rock Island (ROCK), Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern (MNS), Milwaukee Road (MILW), Sandersville (SAN), and Texas Mexican (TM). We anticipate releasing these models in late 2011. Specific information will be available in the announcements tab of our website. We enjoyed ourselves a great deal at WPM. Our genuine compliments to WPM for having organized such a great event!