Half-Z Scale - 1:440 Tiny Trains, and even 1:900 Tiniest Trains!
On separate pages:
ALCO-GE-IR Boxcab Locomotives, et seq.
Schnabel and other Giant RR Cars.
Schnabel Cars Continuation Page.
S. Berliner, III's Pennsylvania Railroad Page, et seq.
with THE SOUTH PENN RR
and PRR Modeling (Penn Line/Cary/Bowser)
Berlinerwerke Saga (HO-Scale, included with Horseshoe Curve information)
and continuation pages with prototype and HO/N/S scale dimensions,
satellite photo, pictures, description of the Horseshoe Curve.
Berlinerwerke Saga (Z-Scale)
which latter has had to be continued onto
six more pages!
including a Tour of the Berlinerwerke-Z.
Berlinerwerke Apocrypha (tall tales of the BW and its equipment and such)
Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Page 2 (more tall tales).
Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha (taller tales?):
NORTHEAST CORRIDOR FREIGHT ENGINES.
LEWELLEN NORTHERN GARRATTS.
CSXT AC100CBW and NSC CB100W-10 10,000 horsepower locos!
EMD - Electro-Motive Division of GM - models, etc.,
including the fabled BW DDP45 and other EMD engines
EMD may never have dreamed of!
Great Northern Western Fruit Express (GN WFEX) Reefers Page.
(21 Jul 2015)
HOW TO BOOT A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE or How to hostle without really tiring -
(Firing up a cold oil burner - in 1:1 scale).
The Whyte System of Classification (4-4-0, 4-6-2, B-B, etc.).
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.
Give Credit Where Credit is Due Department
I belong to other rail groups and subscribe to some rail magazines and read
many more; here are some linked recommendations:
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):
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, had 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!).
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.
Now that I've moved from Long Island's North Shore to Boston's North Shore, in Massachusetts, the big local club is
the North Shore Model Railroad Club, home of the Chesapeake System.
(09 Feb 2011)
- information moved
to Z-Scale page. You might also like to look at José
Lopez, Jr.'s The Scale Card, for a most
extensive discussion of scales. I have a write-up and photo of his Z-scale Scale
Card and Scale Rule on my Z-Scale page 2.
The BERLINERWERKE SAGA, the story of the HO Berlinerwerke pike,
is now combined with the story of the Horseshoe Curve on its own separate pages.
[They will have to be separated out again as the layout, unfortunately,
will no longer include a scale Horseshoe Curve.]
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 more pages.
Visit these courtesy and official home pages:
Sunrise Trail Chapter,
Boston Chapter, and
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
Murrer's Sidings
Kearney Sidings
Marion River Carry Railroad Page (now on its own page).
New York & Atlantic Railway
You may also wish to jump to SB,III's RAILROAD Page
MAJOR REFERENCE LINK!
Jeff Scherb's great "The Model Train Magazine Index (new URL) -
An index to Model Railroad magazines from 1933 to the present", formerly sponsored/hosted by Accurail and now by Kalmbach.
Accurail produces among the finest HO and N freight car models, Kalmbach is one of the two top RR publishers, and Jeff gives us an unparalled access
to old articles on models and prototypes; I strongly recommend Jeff's great work to you.
Because much information about railroads is in German, you might find Chris Ozdoba's Eisenbahn-
und Modellbahn-Wörterbuch - Deutsch-Englisch / Railroad and Model Railroading Dictionary - German-English of value.
MODEL RAILROADING
My first "model" railroad was a gigantic, two-level Lionel O-scale monstrosity (with no scenery) my dad built "for me", hinged over my bed and too heavy
for me to raise and lower; my mother was afraid it would drop on me one night and crush me! When someone saw it and wanted it badly, Dad
sold it on the spot for $1,000, a simply-staggering amount ca. 1940 or 41!& Between Pearl Harbor and Christmas, 1941, he drove me down
to Woodbury Junction, New Jersey (due east of Philadephia), to John Tyler's (thus the later TYCO) Mantua* plant, where we
picked up their HO starter set for a whole $25! More of this story and other model railroading miscellany continues on
Model Railroading Continuation Page 1.
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)
Heck, I reproduce these two scenes all the time!
REMINDER - I owed you folks a page on my wide-cab, cowl-bodied EMD models
and fantasies thereupon; it's there!
Z-Scale is model railroading at an incredible 220 times smaller than life size, or slightly under half the size of the familiar HO scale.
Please Note: All Z-Scale material has been moved to its own page!
Miller Engineering has a 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 1998) to a separate page.
You may wish to visit the
HUB DIVISION and the
SUNRISE TRAIL DIVISION
both of the
NORTHEAST REGION of the
NATIONAL MODEL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION.
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. Cary is now a part of
Bowser Mfg., although Bowser has discontinued both its own and Cary's steam loco kits.
(28 Jan 2014)
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).
BROOKLYN EASTERN DISTRICT RAILROAD (BEDT).
DEGNON TERMINAL RAILROAD.
ATLAS TERMINAL RAILROAD.
To which I must now add the New York & Atlantic Railway about which more will follow.
Great Northern/Burlington Northern - Western Fruit Express Reefers and Boxcars -
(moved to MRR page 4 on 07 May 2001
and then to its own separate page on 10 Nov 2004)
was moved to Continuation Page 3 18 Oct 99.
was moved to Continuation Page 3 18 Oct 1999. However, I kept these recommendations here:
North Shore (Long Island AND Boston) Hobby Shops - I recommend several local (for me when on Long Island's North Shore in northern Nassau County, New York and now on Boston's Nortn Shore) hobby shops
I patronise(d), all of which have given me outstanding service:
(22 Mar 2015)
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!
(now with their own Web site)
Gold Coast Hobby, at the Glen Head station, 516-759-4094; owner Charles Gonder has an incredible stock of abstruse items I found
useful in model railroading, such as architectural, racing, and ship modeling supplies.
There is also Joel and Barbara Berse's Trainville Hobby Depot at 3703 Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown (LI, NY, that is), 516-433-4444
(FAX 516-433-1691); their forté is N-Scale but they order and stock regularly from Micro-Trains Line, so they can serve Z as well. The store doubled in size since
opening and moved from Hicksville to Levittown {as of Aug 2008}.
Hans Nagengast, Jr., runs 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 Westbury): 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.
Here on the North Shore of the Boston, Massachusetts area, the only big shops I've found so far are Charles Ro at 662 Cross Street in
Malden (781-321-0090) and North East Trains at 18 Main Street in Peabody (978-532-1615).
(07 Dec 2016)
[Gerry at Maine Trains in Chelmsford has retired and closed his store.]
(07 Dec 2016)
All of these shops are strong in mail orders (with discounts).
[The Caboose, Inc., in Huntington closed effective 15 Dec 2002; 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 late owner Charles Schaeffer in 1980.]
Dave's Custom Trains, at 845-758-5341*, e-mail: Dave@daves-custom-trains.com;
Dave builds, paints, and super details model trains of all scales and carries railroad supplies, such as unfinished kits, decals, wheels, couplers, detail parts, etc.
His paintwork is a joy to behold!
(20 Mar 2015 - * new tel. no.)
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):
These come from Lee Snover and Rich Garich's small run of O-Scale 23-ton box- and end-cabs (plus Lee's conversion of a stock Corgi model with Mack rail-truck lead truck installed, and rear wheel parts awaiting installation).
(Cropped and doctored 03 Jun 03 from photos courtesy of L. Snover - all rights reserved to source.)
They've made 14 Lehigh Portland Cement GE Boxcabs so far (03 Jun 02), and 8 GE 23 ton End Cabs; this summer (2002) they will finish up 33 GE Boxcabs, half On3 "Contractor's unit" (RR tie end steps!) used on the D&RGW temp. and half Procter and Gamble units (with footboards).
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:
[If you're interested, contact them at
Stuff It Storage Co. (LeeTown Models, Lee Snover),
15 Adams Street Belvidere, NJ 07823,
(908 475-4404 9-2 , 610 837-2801 after 6 PM till 10 PM, FAX: 908 475-4109.]
Here's two more photos of the 23-ton end-cab:
(photos courtesy of L. Snover - all rights reserved to source.)
Model Railroading Museum - on Long Island!
There was (dispossessed) and, hopefully, will soon be again, a Model Railroading Museum on Long Island;
keep tabs on the status here (if you know of a potential sponsor, please let me know ASAP).
Also on Long Island, there are active HOTrack and
Ntrak modular layout groups.
The HUB Division of the Northeastern Region (NER) of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) runs a major
modular HO railroad.
If you like model railroading nonsense (and good tips), take a gander at Jim Wells' incredible
[The AW NUTS Magazine site of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society is no longer available.]
You may wish to visit the Model Railroad Continuation Page 2, et seq.
of this series of Railroad pages.
LEGACY
What happens to all this when I DIE or (heaven forfend!)
lose interest? See LEGACY.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
See Copyright Notice on primary home page.
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© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2015,
2016
- all rights reserved.
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- The vast bulk of my massive Web presence (over 485 pages) had
been hosted by AT&T's WorldNet service since 30 May 1996; they dropped WorldNet effective
31 Mar 2010 and I have been scrambling to transfer everything. Everything's saved but
all the links have to be changed, mostly by hand. See my
sbiii.com Transfer Page for any updates on this tedious process.