Why Model the
Nickel Plate Road?
Because the NICKEL PLATE has it all!
Motive Power
From the incomparable Berkshire steam locomotives that handled mainline manifest freight trains through the 1950s to its mix of ALCO and EMD road switchers and its iconic “Bluebird” PA-1 passenger locos, the Nickel Plate’s array of motive power offers modelers a wide range of steam and diesel choices.
Industries Served
As a key transportation link for the Midwest during the golden era of railroading, the Nickel Plate served every conceivable industry, large and small. Factories, steel mills, automobile plants and transport, coal mines, agricultural loading, docks on the Great Lakes. If it moved by rail, the Nickel Plate moved it.
Connections
If interchanges, crossings and interlockings are your thing, the Nickel Plate is your railroad!
Cities and Towns
From Chicago, Peoria and St. Louis on the west to Cleveland and Buffalo on the east, with dozens of smaller towns in-between, the Nickel Plate captured everything from big-city railroading to small-town station stops.
Scenery
Want mountain railroading? The coal fields of the Wheeling Division in southern Ohio fit your bill. Prefer dramatic bridges? The Nickel Plate had them! And the wide-open spaces of the Midwest give a perfect backdrop to the Nickel Plate’s fast freights rolling east and west.
