Prairie Shadows Model Railway Co

08/22/2026

Vandelay Couplers coming soon in HO Scale.

08/01/2026

Happy National Train Show Day!

We have decided that it was time to produce our own coupler; the Vandelay. This a brown metal coupler with a whisker spring that will come in different variations and sizes. We will start out by offering a traditional "club-friendly" head and a more prototypical "scale" head version of the Type E. This is your generic typical coupler found on most freight cars. Then we will produce other knuckle types with varying shank lengths.

We will begin putting these on our freight cars starting with the Thrall 5150s. We will begin to sell these in bulk packs later this year. MSRP and size of the bulk packs will be announced later this year.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or send us a PM.

07/12/2026

Roof Details.


Go ahead.. take a look. Not one of these roofs are the same. This is the kind of detail we are putting into our Thrall 5150s.

Thrall had installed various roof hatches on the 5150s hopper over the years of production. The hatches, the latches, locks, sticker placement; all unique for this first run of cars.

Still available for preorder. Eta is Q4 this year.

07/03/2026

How about some 5150 samples?

Please note: theses are pre-production samples. We've already made some changes on some things (as we usually do)

ETA is 4th quarter this year.

Have a good weekend!!

PS Team

06/25/2026

RACK UPDATE

Alright folks, HO autoracks are back instock and ready to ship.
Some of the road numbers are very limited and are few are sold out. (as we wait for preorders to be paid, you may see that stock shift)

Click here to purchase:
https://prairieshadows.com/collections/89-tri-level-autorack

Speaking of which, if you placed a preorder and haven't received an invoice from us; please PM as they have all been sent.

Appreciate the business from you all, have a great weekend!

PS TEAM

Between 1981 and 1985, Portec’s latest fully enclosed rack design was being implemented into the wide-body, low-level, flush deck rebuild program. The Portec design included a full side, end, and roof enclosure with patented RAVE (Rack Anti-Vandal Enclosure) doors. These racks would be mounted to ...

06/06/2026

Heard you all are into red, white and blue...

05/30/2026

Rave1 Autroacks are instock now in both warehouses!!
We are sending out preorders over the next couple weeks. So don't be alarmed if you have not received an invoice yet, its coming.

2 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THESE RACKS:

1. We can NOT control the length of Kadee trip pin. This is the black metal piece that comes out of the bottom of the coupler..
Meaning, if the car is derailing on switches, check the trip pin as they tend to be "long" and hits the inside rails of the switch.
Solution is to bend the trip pin wire up, trim the trip pin down a little or cut it off altogether.

2. Please be sure to remove the foam pieces on the sides of the car BEFORE pulling it out of the cradle. See pic below, its clearly marked on the foam pieces. The foam piece protects the rave doors in shipment as well as the door locks are small on the sides of the doors.

We hope you enjoy them, if you didnt preorder, they can be ordered here:
https://prairieshadows.com/collections/89-tri-level-autorack