Bachmann - 24018 - Passenger Train, Steam, North American, Old Time - Baltimore & Ohio - Royal Blue

Specific Item Information: This classic train treated the prominent and powerful to first-class service between New York City and Washington, DC at the turn of the last century. Beautiful in its distinctive cobalt blue, silver and gold paint scheme, this train is a must for collectors.
Contents:
- 4-4-0 American Steam Locomotive and Tender,
- 2x Old-time Coaches,
- Old-time Combine,
- 34 X 24 Oval of Nickel Silver E-Z Track® including 11 pieces curved track, 4 pieces straight track, and 1 curved plug-in terminal rerailer
- Power Pack and Speed Controller,
- Illustrated Instruction Manual.

Prototype History: Passenger train service has been around as long as the railroad itself. In general, early passenger trains, especially during the railroad industry's early years, were relatively dangerous. While steam allowed for faster, and a more efficient means of transportation, this did not necessarily translate into a safer way of travel. Our country’s first railroads like the B&O, Mohawk & Hudson, Albany & Schenectady, South Carolina Canal & Railroad, and others used mostly trial and error in learning what worked and what did not which, unfortunately, sometimes resulted in injuries or deaths. To make matters worse, shoddy construction practices and lack of government oversight, as railroads raced to build new rail lines and rapidly expand their networks, caused numerous deaths and injuries in the 19th century. For instance, early railroad roadbed practices involved using simple large stones to support the track structure, which quickly sank into the soil. This caused tracks to go out of alignment causing derailments. Also, the early rail designs of iron strap rails on wooden track caused deadly “snake heads” when they worked loose, disintegrating the wooden floors of passenger cars, sometimes killing the occupants inside.

Road Name History: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (reporting marks B&O, BO) is one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal (which served New York City) and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. At first this railroad was located entirely in the state of Maryland with an original line from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook. At this point to continue westward, it had to cross into Virginia (now West Virginia) over the Potomac River, adjacent to the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. From there it passed through Virginia from Harpers Ferry to a point just west of the junction of Patterson Creek and the North Branch Potomac River where it crossed back into Maryland to reach Cumberland. From there it was extended to the Ohio River at Wheeling and a few years later also to Parkersburg, West Virginia.

It is now part of the CSX Transportation (CSX) network, and includes the oldest operational railroad bridge in the USA. The B&O also included the Leiper Railroad, the first permanent horse-drawn railroad in the U.S. In later years, B&O advertising carried the motto: "Linking 13 Great States with the Nation." Part of the B&O Railroad's immortality has come from being one of the four featured railroads on the U.S. version of the board game Monopoly, but it is the only railroad on the board which did not serve Atlantic City, New Jersey, directly.

When CSX established the B&O Railroad Museum as a separate entity from the corporation, some of the former B&O Mount Clare Shops in Baltimore, including the Mt. Clare roundhouse, were donated to the museum while the rest of the property was sold. The B&O Warehouse at the Camden Yards rail junction in Baltimore now dominates the view over the right-field wall at the Baltimore Orioles' current home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

At the end of 1970 B&O operated 5552 miles of road and 10449 miles of track, not including the Staten Island Rapid Transit (SIRT) or the Reading and its subsidiaries.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Bachmann Industries (Bachmann Brothers, Inc.) is a Bermuda registered Chinese owned company, globally headquartered in Hong Kong; specializing in model railroading.

Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the home of its North American headquarters, Bachmann is today part of the Kader group, who model products are made at a Chinese Government joint-venture plant in Dongguan, China. Bachmann's brand is the largest seller, in terms of volume, of model trains in the world. Bachmann primarily specializes in entry level train sets, and premium offerings in many scales. The Spectrum line is the high quality, model railroad product line, offered in N, HO, Large Scale, On30, and Williams O gauge all aimed for the hobbyist market. Bachmann is the producer of the famous railroad village product line known as "Plasticville." The turnover for Bachmann model trains for the year ended 31 December 2006 was approximately $46.87 million, a slight increase of 3.36% as compared to 2005.