Happy New Year From Reading Car Company!

Once again, it’s time to throw out the old calendar and work out that hangover because another new year has arrived! We at RCC thought it would give us the opportunity to review 2025 and let you know what we have in store for 2026.

2025 was a very busy year with trips to Mill Creek Central, Train Mountain and Edmonton, Alberta taking place for various train related reasons. We also kept the shop in Birdsboro humming with building and releasing many cars and locomotives. One of the highlights is the release of the Integral Circuits LCRC100 LOCOntroller. The success of this system exceeded our expectations with more than 20 units sold or installed! So many were sold, in fact that we sold out of them well before we expected to! Read on in the 2026 section for more info…

We also continued to crank out Sprayberry Offset hoppers and the new USRA Hoppers in both kit form and also as completed models with Reading and Waddell Coal being the most popular paint schemes. We still have kits available for both cars available from our web store with FREE SHIPPING!

We also sold out of our FMC 5077 Modern Boxcar kits, which we will re-run at some point due to exceptional demand for these beautiful boxcars. The other boxcar we had, the NSC 5277, also sold out with 2 cars going to Canadian National for use in their Homewood and Winnipeg training centers. The CN cars are replicas of their Autonomous Track Inspection Cars complete with custom details to match those cars.

We also built and sold out of the 65’ Modern Mill Gondolas with the majority of the cars going to the Marshall Steam Museum in Delaware to replace some aging riding cars in their fleet. They are very happy with their new equipment which also includes 2 centerbeam riding cars and an airbrake caboose with seat for a conductor.

One of the big things we worked on over 2025 was the design and prototyping of 2 new cars, the Northeastern Caboose and the 100t 3 Bay Hopper Car. The Northeastern Caboose has had to be tweaked quite a bit to make it as good as it can be (More on that later…) and the 3 Bay hopper is nearly ready for market after a couple minor adjustments.

As mentioned above, we did a lot of travelling this year. It started out with a trip to Mill Creek Central in Ohio to pick up our Morris switcher which had been converted from gas power to electric by Laura and Dominik at Integral Circuits. It had the LCRC100 LOCOntroller installed in it to be used as a “salesman’s sample”. It was picked up in gray primer and was painted in Conrail patchout for the next trip.

The BIG trip this year was to Train Mountain. The 6300 mile round trip was well worth it as we, along with Laura and Dominik from Integral Circuits, Jim Abbott and Chris Rotman from Highball Graphics, Pat Murphy from Sprayberry Hopper, and Anthony Clark from the Southern Ontario Live Steamers, rolled along I-80 watching trains, eating interesting food and having a great time. The highlight of course was the 9 days we spent plying the rails of Train Mountain with the equipment we brought and getting to meet many new friends as well as hanging out with some folks from “back east”. It was also nice to be able to put faces with names of folks we’ve talked to on the internet.

The other big trip this year saw Russ and Anthony Clark fly to Edmonton, Alberta Canada to pay a visit to the Alberta Railway Museum and meet up with some of the fine folks there to take a gander (and get lots of photos and measurements of) their C40-8CM Locomotive. This was necessary for us to build the batch of 5 units we will be doing over the next couple of years. As of this writing, we have 1 build slot (out of 5 to be built) left if you would like one. We will never be running this model again, so don’t miss out.

So….2026…..

Now that we’ve seen where we went, the question is “Where are we going?”. Well, the answer is “Forward in Run 8!” of course! We’ve got a lot planned for 2026, and here’s where we’re headed….

Lets start with the big one.. The LCRC100 LOCOntrollers…. circuit boards for 30 more units have been received and are are in the process of being assembled into their boxes to ready them for shipping. We expect the next batch will be available towards the end of February. The great news is MU is almost ready to go and is the most advanced MU system on the market with features like automatic speed limiting and speed matching, automatic lighting and sound adjustment, the ability to MU up to 14 units from any manufacturer (as long as they have the LCRC100 installed), and automatic direction detection so units can be MU’d in any orientation in the consist. Customers who have already purchased controllers will be provided the upgrade and shipping to us and back free of charge to upgrade their software for MU. The not so great news is that our circuit boards are built in China and due to the tariffs and raw materials prices going up, our price will have to increase $150 for the system. This is less than we were expecting, but still more than we would like. The good news is it’s still less expensive and more full featured than any other control system on the market which makes it a great choice for your locomotives. But you don’t have to take my word for it… Here are a couple reviews from buyers of the LCRC100 systems:

Models

2026 is going to be busy year with releases. We’ve announced some of them at Train Mountain, but here’s a rundown of whats on the drawingboard:

• Northeastern Caboose - This one hasn’t moved very fast, but it’s almost across the finish line. We’re waiting on 1 more part price to open pre-orders. We’d rather make sure it’s all there before we start taking money for this. Once we have that pricing, we’ll open orders for kits. The NE Caboose kits have a ton of detail as-is, but we’re also offering an interior kit for those who would like it. Check out the caboose page for more info and stay tuned to our Facebook page for the kit release. The first release of these cars will be kits only except for those whom we’ve already chatted with regarding a build. A run of built cars will follow in 2027.

• 100 Ton Triple Hoppers - Better know to the Pennsy crowd as the H43 and the rest of the US as the Bethlehem Steel 3433, these modern hoppers will work well for 1960s+ modelers as these cars were used all across the US and Canada to haul coal and stone. Currently we are building the 2nd prototype and we expect the kit release in spring of this year.

• PS2003 2 Bay Covered Hopper - These 2 bay covered hoppers were one of the earliest welded covered hoppers and showed up on the scene in the 1950s. Their lifespan took them into the 1990s in general service and then into current day as ballast cars. Our car is an easy to build model of these common cars. The cars will have a removable roof to allow them to be used for storage. Steel is currently on the way for the prototype car and we expect the release to be late spring/early summer of this year.

• PS4750 3 Bay Covered Hopper - These big 4,750 cubic foot covered hoppers showed up on the scene in the early 1970s and can still be seen today plying the rails in the US and Canada. Our model will be more of a “Gold Series” car with highly detailed roof walks and hatches along with all the end detail you’d expect in a model like this. It will have a removable roof to be able to use the interior as storage. These are finishing up in the design phase and we expect a prototype to show up mid summer with a fall release.

• AAR 1923 (X29) Boxcar - These boxcars were the standard boxcars of the 1930s and 40s. Their design became one of the most commonly seen cars of the steam era with all major railroads in the US having some, particularly the Pennsylvania Railroad who called this car the “X29”. Our model will represent an early car with stamped flat ends and all the rivets of the real car. This car has been in development for some time and steel has been ordered for the prototype. We expect the release of this car to be late spring, early summer of this year.

As you can see, we’ll be busy! That’s not it though! We’ll also have a couple of “one-off” models coming out that will be available. We will also continue to support our line of 3D printed detail parts including our air tanks, triple valves and brake cylinders along with new additions for the caboose builders out there like caboose seats, toolboxes, sinks, stoves, desks, etc.

Electronics

Another area we’re very busy in is locomotives and their control systems. As mentioned above, we’re building 5 C40-8CMs, but we’re also working on development of 2 other locomotives, the Alco T6 in conjunction with Integral Circuits and the SD40-2. The 40-2s will offer a couple different variants to more closely match your prototype! More info on these will be coming later this year. In the meantime, our shop remains busy with installation of our control system. We can install or upgrade your locomotive as well, just reach out and we are happy to discuss. We even have commitments to install our system onsite at a customer’s railroad later this year.

Last but not least is our offering of electronics is expanding! Currently we offer the Integral Circuits “Quick Block Basic” signal system and the “Crossing Guard Basic” railroad crossing controller, but coming later in the year is the Quick Block Advanced” and “Crossing Guard Advanced” systems for more advanced railroad control. We also will be rolling out the “AC/DCC” sound system for locomotives that uses the ESU LokSound 5FX chipset to produce sound in locos that are not yet equipped. This system includes a 30 watt amplifier onboard, speed and load based sound adjustments and so much more!

That about wraps it up for now, but stay tuned for all this plus other announcements that we have in store but can’t talk about yet. Our Canadian friends will definitely want to keep a ear out as we’re working on ways to better serve you.

I hope everyone reading this has had a great NYE and that 2026 will be happy and healthy for you. I want to thank all our customers, suppliers, contractors and employees for a great 2025, and I look forward to a wonderful 2026 with you all.

Best Wishes!

Russ, Heather and James Swinnerton

www.ReadingCarCompany.com