I regret to note the passing of John H. Armstrong, model railroader par excellence, who died on 28 Jul 2004 after a brief illness.  John did a lot for me without ever knowing it, especially through his classic 1963 "Track Planning for Realistic Operation", to which I still refer.

Your inclusion on page 61, Fig. 7-4, of a photo of an Erie boxcab working the carfloat terminal on the Harlem River was one of the things that ignited my abiding interest in boxcabs and your O-scale Canandaigua Southern Belpaired 4-6-6-6 Super Allegheny on page 75 helped inspire my subsequent lunacy.

We'll miss you, John.

One John Sing of San Mateo, California, has posted a " eulogy" to John Armstrong, with photos of the CS taken by Clint Hyde of the NMRA Potomac Division; I recommend it to you.

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Give Credit Where Credit is Due Department

Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society
    publishes an outstanding quarterly, THE KEYSTONE

Kalmbach Publications
    MODEL RAILROADER
    TRAINS

Carstens Publications
    RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
    RAILFAN & RAILROAD

RAILPACE Newsmagazine {railroading in the Northeast}

Also, in the vicinity of NYC, there are three of the world's largest model railroads
(excepting my own, of course - all four are in HO scale):

The Rensselaer Model Railroad Society

(the New England, Berkshire & Western) in Troy, New York

The Model Railroad Club, in Union, New Jersey

Northlandz ("The Great American Railway"), in Flemington, New Jersey

There are/were two truly-fabulous local layouts I have especially enjoyed over these many years,

West Island Model Railroad Club in Farmingdale,

and the

the Montauk Valley Club in Williston Park
(which, unfortunately, has lost its lease - and it's URL!)

each very different in character, yet both quite outstanding.

I seem to have omitted (or lost) a link to the Rockville Centre Model Railroaders, home of the Sheepshead Connecting Lines (sorry 'bout that!).   (15 Apr 07)

For information about the many other wonderful clubs and LI model railroading,
visit Richard Einhorn's "Model Railroading on Long Island" site.

Glenn Whitener has a great model railroad index.

SCALE and GAUGE

The BERLINERWERKE SAGA, the story of the HO Berlinerwerke pike,
is now combined with the story of the Horseshoe Curve on its own separate page.

The full Z-scale pike story, the BERLINERWERKE-Z SAGA
now appears on its own page, as well, but has had to be continued onto two more pages.

Visit these courtesy and official home pages:

Sunrise Trail Chapter
NRHS (National Railway Historical Society)

Ztrack Magazine
The Newsletter for Z Scale Model Railroading
Z-Scale is only 1:220 with rails only ¼" apart!
It is about 2½ times smaller than HO!
Please Note:  This courtesy home page has been moved to a new Z-Scale page!

Long Island Live Steamers

Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal Railroad

Degnon Terminal Railroad, plus

New York & Atlantic Railway

I always knew that some of my modeling was really realistic but never realized just how much so until I got a brochure from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers railing [did I really write that?] against unmanned (remote controlled) locos, with these three great prototype photos:

(photos courtesy of BLE)

Miller Engineering has a new site at http://www.microstru.com; if you are not familiar with their line of jewel-like etched brass structures, a business block, Victorian houses with gingerbread, a bank, a hotel, a movie house, even a stainless '40s diner and a microscopic telephone booth, be sure to visit the site!  For a preview, see the Z-Scale Continuation page.  [Also in HO and N Scales and 1:144 Collector's Scale.]

Image from Z-world

Schnabel Car and Trafo (transformer) Load.
Märklin Z-Scale Depressed Center Flat Car #8620 shown;
(actually, it is NOT a "Depressed Center Flat Car" at all;
in fact, it HAS no center at all, flat or otherwise,
it is a Schnabel Car which separates and bolts to a load)

Schnabel Car (and other giant cars) information grew so dramatically
(with photos) that I moved it (03 Jul 98) to a separate page.

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SUNRISE TRAIL DIVISION

NORTHEAST REGION

NATIONAL MODEL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION

The Sunrise Trail Division now has it's own Web site:

http://www.trainweb.org/std/.
[This supersedes the earlier "http://members.tripod.com/~Sunrise_Trail/" URL.]

Please visit!

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Pennsylvania Railroad Matters

Although I note my extensive coverage on my Pennsylvania Railroad Page, et seq., the total picture gets blurred by inclusion under RR, history, modeling, etc.  If you have an interest in things Pennsy, I refer you to my pages noted, to the sites linked thereon, and especially to the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society.

One of the firms that I depended on heavily for Pennsy details was Don Stromberg's Cary Locomotive Works; although they also made boilers and other details for other roads, they specialized in the Pennsy and I have some Cary nostalgia on my PRR pages, notably on PRR Continuation Page 0.

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Long Island Live Steamers (LILS)

A great group of miniature live steam (and diesel and electric) operators running at mostly 1½" scale (some 3/4") in Southhaven Park at the intersection of William Floyd Parkway (Suffolk County Route 46) and Sunrise Highway (U.S. Route 27).  LILS now has its own separate page.

(LIVE STEAMING LINK)

VEST POCKET (but real) RAILROADS YOU CAN MODEL:

MARION RIVER CARRY RAILROAD - (now on its own page).

    To which I must now add the New York & Atlantic Railway about which more will follow.

REALLY HEAVY Electrics!

More Model Railroad Miscellany

I recommend two local (for me in northern Nassau County on Long Island, New York) hobby shops I patronise, all of which have given me outstanding service:

Willis Hobbies in Mineola, 516-746-3944 (press 1) - I bought my first HO engine (a new Ken Kidder brass convertible tank engine for $7.50!) and an MRC power pack (both still in use) ca. 1960 from the late Karl Boehringer, founder, and have continued with Willis through Karl's successor, Al Ford, and now Al's sons, Steve and Ken!

Gold Coast Hobby, at the Glen Head station, 516-759-4094 - nearest to me; owner Charles Gonder has an incredible stock of abstruse items I find useful in model railroading, such as architectural, racing, and ship modeling supplies.

There is also Joel and Barbara Berse's Trainville Hobby Depot at 535 South Broadway in Hicksville, 516-433-4444 (888-387-2468 outside NY); their forté is N-Scale but they order and stock regularly from Micro-Trains Line, so they can serve Z as well.  The store has doubled in size since opening.   (20 Mar 07)

There is a combination hardware store and hobby shop in Ridgewood, Queens, that has a goodly stock of Märklin rolling stock and track; while not expert in all aspects of Z, they discount Märklin at 30%!  Convenient to the M train for Manhattanites and other NYC dwellers and accessible to those willing to brave the parking situation in darkest Queens (30 miles from Glen Head):  Hobbies 'R 'Us, in Nagengast's Tru-Value Hardware at 68-02 Fresh Pond Road, Ridgewood, New York  11385, Phone.: 718-821-1319, Fax: 718-386-2910.  They are a ½-block south of the elevated Fresh Pond Road stop on the southwest corner of 68th Avenue and a few blocks north of the LIRR's Bay Ridge branch, off Jackie Robinson (ex-Interboro) Parkway for LI'ers, between Myrtle and Metropolitan Avenues, with limited parking on the south side of 68th Avenue in front of three garages just to their west.  Hans Nagengast, Jr., is the knowledgeable person with whom I work.

All of these shops are strong in mail orders (with discounts).

The Caboose, Inc., in Huntington has closed effective 15 Dec 02; I bought my first Märklin mini-Club Z-scale equipment (an 8907A starter set listing for $99.50!, less its awful 6727 power pack) from owner Charles Schaeffer in 1980.

A shop that had opened in Melville on Route 110, J & D Hobbies, at 522a Walt Whitman Road has closed (as of 14 Dec 02).

I am quite the BOXCAB fan(atic), witness my enormous coverage of boxcabs on this site; here's a GE 23-ton gem in O-scale, with a companion GE end cab (and a Mack Railcar in O):

(Cropped and doctored 03 Jun 03 from photos courtesy of L. Snover - all rights reserved to source.)

Don't hold your breath, but rumor hath it that we might just see a Porter 22½-ton boxcab next and they've added a six-cylinder diesel engine:

Here's two more photos of the 23-ton end-cab:

(photos courtesy of L. Snover - all rights reserved to source.)

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Model Railroading Museum - here on Long Island!

Also on Long Island, we have active HOTrack and Ntrak modular layout groups.

© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 - All rights reserved.