M.T.H. founder Mike Wolf began his career in model trains at the age of 12 by working for Jerry Williams of Williams Reproductions, which made replicas of classic locomotives such as the Ives No. 1694 and the Lionel 381 and 408E. Wolf started M.T.H., which stands for Mike’s Train House and is sometimes abbreviated as MTH, in 1980 when he was just 20. In the beginning, Wolf ran M.T.H, as a mail-order business out of his parents’ home, but he was soon sharing a building with Williams in Columbia, Maryland.
Like Williams, Wolf specialized in model trains from the hobby’s golden age. The goal for both was accuracy and detail superseding anything that had come before. While M.T.H. briefly produced brass trains for Lionel in the late 1980s, today it is known for its own lines. Trains in its Premier line run on O gauge tracks at 1:48 scale. Metal details are made out of real metal, and models such as the Santa Fe Blue Goose have lights and smoke. RailKing trains (sometime spelled as Rail King) also run on O gauge tracks at 1:48 scale, but the locomotives, passengers cars, gondolas, hoppers, and tenders are less detailed and shorter, which gives them a tighter turning radius. M.T.H. also makes HO trains, as well as tinplate reproductions of prewar Lionel trains.
Interviews & Articles
The Beauty of Brass Model Trains

We’ve been operating Dan’s Train Depot, which is the parent company of BrassTrains.com, for about 11 years now. We bought out a ve… [more]
Train Talk with the National Model Railroad Association's Brent Lambert

The NMRA library’s original purpose was to focus on model railroading, but over time we’ve also received donations that have helpe… [more]
Best of the Web (“Hall of Fame”)
Airfix Model Railways

Dave McCarthy's Airfix Model Railway treasure trove is an in-depth archive of the company's plastic railway kits fr… [read review or visit site]
Gateway NMRA

This great reference site for model railroaders, from the Gateway (St. Louis) division of the NMRA (National Model … [read review or visit site]
HOseeker.net

This site is a treasure trove of HO scale model railroad manufacturer catalogs and other reference information, inv… [read review or visit site]
Postwar Lionel Trains Library

Bernie Schulz’s Lionel Trains Library focuses exclusively on postwar Lionel trains and accessories. The site cont… [read review or visit site]
Eric's Trains

Eric Siegel's site displays his collection of O-gauge/O-scale trains, tracks, turntables, and other accessories. A … [read review or visit site]
Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT

MIT's model railroad club, as one might expect, has one of the best websites for learning about how people play wit… [read review or visit site]
Clubs & Associations
- Train Collectors Association
- National Model Railroad Association
- Lionel Collectors Club of America
- Toy Train Operating Society
- National Association of S Gaugers, Inc.
- Train Collectors Society (U.K.)
- Lionel Operating Train Society
Vintage Guru Reveals Her Glamour Secrets
The Killer Mobile Device for Victorian Women
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
The Beautiful Chaos of Improvisational Quilts
Our Dad, the Water Witch of Wyoming
This 1959 Goggomobil Is Insanely Cute and Gets 55 MPG. Why Can’t Detroit Do That?
California Cool: How the Wetsuit Became the Surfer's Second Skin
The Unfiltered History of Rolling Papers, Plus Tommy Chong's Big Fat Jamaican Vacation
World's Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects
Fightin’ Femmes: Unmasking Female Superheroes with Author Mike Madrid

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