Railway history: Narrow gauge railway

From Wikipedia
A narrow gauge railway (or railroad) is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between 2 ft (610 mm) and 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm).

Overview
Since narrow gauge railways are usually built with smaller radius curves and smaller structure gauges, they can be substantially cheaper to build, equip, and operate than standard gauge or broad gauge railways, particularly in mountainous or difficult terrain. The lower costs of narrow gauge railways mean they are often built to serve industries and communities where the traffic potential would not justify the cost of building a standard or broad gauge line.

Narrow gauge railways also have specialized use in mines and other environments where a very small structure gauge makes a very small loading gauge necessary.

On the other hand, standard gauge or broad gauge railways generally have a greater haulage capacity and allow greater speeds than narrow gauge systems.

Historically, many narrow gauge railways were built as part of specific industrial enterprises and were primarily industrial railways rather than general carriers. Some common uses for these industrial narrow gauge railways were mining, logging, construction, tunnelling, quarrying, and the conveying of agricultural products. Extensive narrow gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world for these purposes.

For example, mountain logging operations in the 19th century often used narrow gauge railways to transport logs from mill sites to market. Trench railways on the western front in World War I were a short-lived military application. Significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Fiji, Java, the Philippines and in Queensland in Australia. Narrow gauge railway equipment remains in common use for the construction of tunnels.

Narrow gauge railways also have more general applications. Non-industrial narrow gauge mountain railways are or were common in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and the Pacific Cordillera of Canada, in Mexico, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and Costa Rica. In South Africa the "Cape gauge" of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) is the most common gauge. In India, the narrow gauge system is slowly being converted to broad gauge, although some of India's most famous railways, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and Kalka-Shimla Railway are both narrow gauge. All 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) (metre gauge) railways are being converted to 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) (broad gauge) under the Unigauge project.

US Railways: Adirondack Railway

In 1972, a storm damaged the Lake Placid Line of Penn Central - formerly New York Central's Adirondack Division, north of Remsen, NY.

The line had been built by William Seward Webb, son-in-law of William H. Vanderbilt. Webb had taken over the Herkimer, Newport & Poland, a narrow guage line which went through those towns. He standard gauged the line, and extended it north as the Adirondack & St. Lawrence- later the Mohawk & Malone.

This, and its Montreal extension, the St. Lawrence & Adirondack, became part of the New York Central in the early 1900s.

NYC had a short branch from Lake Clear Junction to Saranac Lake; from there to Lake Placid its trains ran on Delaware & Hudson rails, the tail end of a former narrow gauge line from Plattsburg, Nebraska.

By the time Penn Central (PC) began operation, the Lake Clear Junction-Malone line had been abandoned; a line from Tupper Lake Junction to Ottawa had been taken up many years before.

The New York State Department of Transportation purchased Penn Central's right of way and track in 1975. The Adirondack Railway was incorporated in 1976 to rehabilitate the line and restore service, in order to be able to use it during the 1980 Winter Games at Lake Placid. The Adirondack Railway inaugerated regularly scheduled passenger service between Utica and Lake Placid on October 9, 1979, using Conrail track between Utica and REmsen.

Despite extensive and expensive track rehabilitation, derailments occurred frequently. The state shut the railroad down after its seventh derailment, on August 6, 1990.

Service was resumed between Tupper Lake Junction and Lake Placid the next month, but the state revoked the operating contract in February, 1981. The rolling stock and other equipment were sold at auction in April 1982.

Location of headquarters: Old Forge, New York
Miles of railroad operated: 118
Number of locomotives: 4
Number of passenger cars: 21

Bibliography
The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, Railroad Reference Series #3, George H. Drury, Kalmbach Books, 1994

7 May, 2011: Kids invited to Train Day celebration at L.A. Railroad Museum

Santa Clara Signal: Kids invited to Train Day celebration at L.A. Railroad Museum
To celebrate National Train Day, The Jim Henson Company, PBS SoCal, Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum Random House and MEGA Brands will host a train day celebration, Saturday, May 7 from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. where you can have an afternoon of train rides, photos with Buddy the Dinosaur, Sing-along's, Random House's Dinosaur Train Reading Corner, MEGA Brands Play Corner with new Dinosaur Train construction sets and other special surprises.

Train Day celebration is to celebrate National Train Day and month-long train celebrations on PBS Kids and www.pbskids.org.

The event will take place at Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum, 5202 Zoo Drive, Los Angeles 90027.

Important: Guests must RSVP to attend the event. We will not be able to accommodate guests who are not on our RSVP list. Also, please note that there will be media at this event and you will be asked to sign a publicity waiver upon your arrival.

To RSVP contact Carol Holdsworth or Michelle Orsi, Three.Sixty Marketing & Communications. Phone (805)252-1848 or (310)418-6430. Email carol@360-comm.com or michelle@360-comm.com


About your safety: Safety for all guests attending the Dinosaur Train event at the Los Angeles Live Steamers and Railroad Museum is our top priority. For that reason, only guests who are at least 34” in height and weigh under 350 lbs will be allowed to ride the trains. Train enthusiasts who do not meet these requirements are welcome to attend the event, but will not be permitted to ride the trains. NOTE: The Los Angeles Live Steamers and Railroad Museum is a working railroad so please observe the rules and never leave your child unattended. There is no childcare provided. Adults must ride the trains with their children (maximum 2 children per adult on the trains). Finally, in the case of rain, this event will be postponed. Please contact (323) 802-1606 for postponement updates on the day of the event.

The Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum (LALSRM), a non profit organization, was started by train enthusiasts in 1956 for the purpose of educating people in railroad history and lore and also to further the avocation of live steam, gas-mechanical and electronic railroad technology. The Museum operates 7½" gauge model trains and also boasts a number of historical railroad cars and a stationary steam plant at its location at Griffith Park. The museum is open to the general public on most Sundays from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. For more information, visit www.lals.org.

McHenry County Historical Society opens with tribute to Harvard

Northwest Herald: McHenry County Historical Society opens with tribute to Harvard
Every town in McHenry County has a story to tell. Now it’s Harvard’s turn.

The McHenry County Historical Society will open for a new season Sunday
with “Arrival – Harvard, Circa the 1880s.”

The two-year exhibit will highlight the history of the city, once the railroad hub of McHenry County.

And the best way to tell that history is through people, said Grace Molina, exhibit curator for the society.

“What I really like to do in an exhibit is focus on the people and their personal stories,” she said.

As part of Sunday’s opening, a panel of longtime residents will share their thoughts and experiences at 1:30 p.m.

One of the panelists, 95-year-old Margaret Kistler, put together a history book in 2006 for Harvard’s Sesquicentennial.

She grew up in town, attending a one-room school house “with a big round furnace in it” until seventh grade when the city’s first junior high opened.

“I often wonder how those poor dear teachers ever taught us kids what we needed to know,” she said. “You’d listen to the grades below you and the grades ahead of you and you’d learn by listening.”

Through the exhibit, visitors also will get to know deceased members of the Ayers family, including Elbridge Gerry Ayer, known as the founder of Harvard.

He made a deal with the Chicago, St. Paul and Fon du Lac Railroad. Bring the tracks to Harvard, and the town will provide free land, a hotel, a restaurant and anything else needed to meet the needs of the people and workers traveling on the trains.

“He ended up getting a lot out of this deal,” Molina said. “He made the railway.”

Harvard soon became the busiest railroad yard in the county with a locomotive roundhouse large enough to accommodate 25 engines.

A turntable basically turned the trains, so they could be placed in the roundhouse and serviced, Molina said. Many railroad people moved to town as a result.

It was an important time for the city, Museum Administrator Nancy Fike said, and that’s why it was chosen.

As part of its two-year displays, the 35-year-old museum picks communities and highlights various eras.

Previous exhibits have featured Marengo in the 1890s and Fox River Grove in the 1920s.

“It just takes you back to a whole other period,” Molina said.

The new exhibit will include an operating model train as well as an original painting done by the late Elbridge Ayer Burbank of Harvard, nationally known for his work portraying Native Americans.

He was the only artist to paint from life the legendary Geronimo, a prominent Native American leader who fought against the United States in the Apache Wars.

Elbridge Ayer’s oldest son, Edward Ayer, went on to help found and serve as first president of the Field Museum. His nephew was Burbank.

Other highlights of the exhibit include a “ghost,” who will talk about how at the age of 16, he once guarded the safe of Alonzo Axtell. Axtell owned a dry-good business at the time, and loaned money on the side.

He rigged up a pail of water over his safe and asked a young Frank Phelps to sit by the safe at night and pull the rope if a robber appeared.

The thought was that the commotion would wake up Axtell, sleeping upstairs, Molina explained.

Axtell went on to found a bank in Harvard, and Phelps became a cashier. He later served as vice-president of the bank.

“There’s always a neat story,” Molina said.

The exhibit, as well as previous exhibits, couldn’t have been accomplished without the help of volunteers, including a group of men from Intren, Inc., in Union who helped move heavy parts of the display up and down the stairs, Fike said.

“These things come about because of cooperation,” she said

Rail simulator offers taste of Canadian train travel

CBC News: Rail simulator offers taste of Canadian train travel
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a

It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

Just allowing the camera to navigate around the mountainous scenery will be a key feature in an upcoming update, the largest planned release to the RailWorks platform yet. While Rogers Pass isn’t confirmed as a
It’s late evening at Castle Rock. A shipment of goods needs to be taken to Larkspur Wood Specialties, about a half-hour’s drive away. The lines ahead are fairly quiet and everything’s on schedule. The only thing on my mind is the locomotive I’ve been assigned, the SD-40-2 Wide Nose. The “comfort cab” that supposedly distinguishes this model from the regular SD-40-2 isn’t any roomier from my viewpoint; then again, this is a freight carrier.

I move the throttle and reverser levers, ease up the brakes and slowly make my way out of the cargo yard and down the track, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.

In reality, I’m toggling through the camera views in RailWorks 2, a British-made rail simulator game. It’s a unique gaming experience, allowing players to drive freight and passenger trains in a variety of locations. It deals with starkly different subject matter than most videogame titles, yet has the complexity and challenges that any gamer can appreciate.

While my locomotive is supposedly part of the Castle Rock Railroad line, the black, red and white livery gives it away in an instant: it’s a Canadian National Rail train. Is it possible that a sim developed in the United Kingdom provides the best facsimile of that Canadian tradition – running the railway from sea to sea?

Railworks 2 is available on Steam, the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with upwards of 2.3 million active users online at peak hours. Sales figures indicate most Steam users are traditional gamers, favouring titles like Starcraft or Call of Duty: Black Ops. It’s a curiosity, then, that every few months, a downloadable pack (or “DLC”) for RailWorks 2 appears on the New Releases tab.

Most big-budget video games issue DLC packs intermittently within their first year of release in the hopes of rekindling interest and generating more income for the developers post-launch. RailWorks 2, however, has kept the DLC stream going for well over three years — that’s 65 packs in all (totalling more than $1,000 USD).

A screenshot from the Portsmouth Direct Line, one of the series available in the train simulation game Railworks 2. RailSimulator.com
Produced by London-based studio RailSimulator.com, Railworks was released in 2009, and a massive upgrade re-christened it RailWorks 2 in September 2010. RailSimulator.com CEO Paul Jackson helped establish the UK branch of Electronic Arts over 20 years ago and was instrumental in building its empire, including co-founding the FIFA soccer franchise and serving as brand-builder for The Sims.

Jackson has no illusions about his uncommon strategy for RailWorks 2.

“I think DLC on most games have historically been something you had to have [in order] to have the full experience. That is not true with what we do,” he says. Jackson says users are encouraged to buy the expansion packs containing the locomotives they are most interested in. Usually, the interest is locally driven. Train fans on the UK’s West Coast Main Line, for example, are more likely to buy the package that re-creates it; a Canadian with a keen sense of nation-building history can pick the packs containing CN-commissioned trains.

Expansion packs with North American trains and liveries have been less frequent than European ones over RailWorks’s history, since Jackson’s team usually has to rely on roundabout ways of gathering material to accurately re-create the trains. In addition to using reference material provided by CN Rail, Jackson’s team used photographs taken by friends in Canada. The livery for the SD-40-2, for example, required roughly 200 photos.

As I cruise the Castle Rock in the CN-approved livery, though, one thing is missing from the experience: an actual Canadian rail line. Castle Rock is fictional, adapted from a Colorado line. Jackson says that’s due to the extensive amount of time and work needed to complete any real-world railroads.

“The West Coast Main Line, which was the last big line we released, took about 18 months to create,” he says. That hasn’t slowed down the team’s ambition, however, because the first Canadian line on their to-do list is the Rogers Pass, a high mountain pass runs through the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia.

“I was looking at Canadian National routes the other day, and I was looking at the Rogers Pass route, and I’d love to drive that. But the mountainous nature of it means that we’d need a draw distance that goes much further out than what we’ve got.”

China: Derailed

Fox Business: Varney& Co: Derailed
Once a symbol of China’s booming economy, the country’s high-speed trains may be getting a little off track. In recent weeks, China’s Railways Ministry announced it will be lowering the train’s top speed, as well as reducing ticket prices in an attempt to attract riders. These changes come as a result of their Railway Ministry’s debt that has reached an estimated $291 billion.

While China reevaluates their own system, questions are being raised about the prospect of America to build its own. Both the president and vice president have voiced support for such a project, which according to President Obama, will improve travel and commerce.

Others like USC Professor James Moore are not so sure. In an LA Times article, Moore argues that “railroads are a crucial component of the U.S. freight management and distribution system, but we do not need and cannot afford a high-speed rail system for passengers.” Today on Varney & Co., he reinforced this belief.

“The president indicated in his State of the Union address that he wanted to bring high-speed rails to 80% of Americans within 25 years,” said Moore. According to Moore, the president and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood were prepared to commit $53 billion to this project – an amount that Moore says is “a drop in the bucket” for a project of that scale.

“It would be very expensive to do that and unnecessary,” said Moore.

How expensive is too expensive? Moore says it is hard to tell. He says it is difficult to know how much states are planning to spend when the high-speed rail authorities in states like California keep shifting their numbers.

“They are very optimistic, but in California alone you can easily drop $80 billion into an effort if you wanted to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco.”

While Moore agreed that there was some prestige in having these systems, he emphasized that in addition to China, other nations such as France have their own versions of a high-speed rail system and are also losing money.

Walt Disney's original railroad lives on in Los Angeles

The Orange County Register: Walt Disney's original railroad lives on in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — Before there was a Disneyland Railroad, Walt Disney used to have his own miniature live steam railroad at his home in Holmby Hills.

Pieces of the railroad can still be seen, though it has moved several miles to a spot in Griffith Park.

The Carolwood Pacific Railroad was named after the street where Disney's home was located on. Walt's original set-up included 2,615 feet of track that even crossed a 46 foot long trestle and ducked through a 90 foot long tunnel that ran underneath Mrs. Disney's flower bed.

The railroad also had a building where the engine and rolling stock were maintained when not in use. That building, actually Disney's workshop, was known as the Carolwood Barn. It was built by the same architect who built much of Disney Studios in Burbank.

It was "Walt's happy place" according to Michael Broggie, founding chairman of the Carolwood Society and Foundation, formed in 1993 to preserve Walt Disney's railroad legacy. Disney enjoyed getting away to the barn to escape the fun but pressure-packed life running Disney Studios.

Broggie's father, Roger, himself a Disney legend, helped Disney build the 1/8-scale train. Broggie, his older brother and his father used to help Disney run the train too.

In 1998, Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney's daughter, asked the group to help preserve the barn and many of the items related to Walt's love of railroads when the home was sold.

Because of its connection to miniature steam trains, arrangements were made to have the barn moved to its current location at the Los Angeles Live Steamers Railroad Museum in Griffith Park in 1999, of which Disney was a charter member. There volunteers work to keep the barn and the many train-related items on display in pristine condition and help tell visitors the story of Walt Disney's railroad legacy.

It's "the only free Disney attraction in the world!" brags the Carolwood website.

Inside the barn, visitors can see a replica of Disney's original model steam engine, the Lily Belle. There's also a 1/8-scale steam engine called the King George V that Disney purchased in 1951. The foundation is working to restore into working condition.

Outside next to the barn, is one of the original Disneyland & Santa Fe Railroad cars. The car was part of the train Disney was running when it pulled into Disneyland's Main Street Station on opening day of the Anaheim park — July 17, 1955.

The combine car was Disney's personal favorite. It is known as a combine car because it was a combination passenger and freight car. It was retired in 1974 as loading and unloading passengers took too long and the seats in the car faced forward, not favorable for viewing the theme park.

A number of former Disney employees, friends and their families staff the barn when it is open to the public. Many of them are railroad fans, and are available to answer questions about Disney's railroad past, the barn and more.

———

IF YOU GO:
The Carolwood Barn is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with free parking and free admission on the third Sunday of each month, weather permitting. It also hosts special events throughout the year. The barn can be reached by exiting the Ventura Freeway at the Forest Lawn exit, then following the direction signs to the parking area and entrance.

The Live Steamers Railroad Museum surrounds the barn, though that museum, complete with working model steam engines has a separate entrance. Also nearby is Travel Town, with a number of retired full-size old steam engines, railroad cars and a model railroad on display.

CHECKLIST: For more information, go to carolwood.org and carolwood.com.

Don Clark's family carries on the 35-year tradition of huge train display at Mall at Steamtown

The TImes-Tribune.com: Don Clark's family carries on the 35-year tradition of huge train display at Mall at Steamtown
For 35 years, Don Clark made his tiny masterpieces available to the community, with little motive other than seeing the joy and wonder they brought to people young and old.

Mr. Clark is no longer here. But his family is doing its best to ensure his life's work lives on.

Generations of locals came to know Mr. Clark through Miniature Memories, his pain-stakingly crafted display of model trains and hand-built replicas of local landmarks, which he made available to the public at several Scranton-area locations starting in 1977.

While he didn't charge admission to the display, Mr. Clark accepted donations, which he in turn gave to his favorite charities, St. Joseph's Center and the Voluntary Action Center's Christmas Holiday Bureau.

Last year, Mr. Clark and a group of volunteers moved Miniature Memories to the second floor of the Mall at Steamtown. A couple days after the display's opening in late November, just in time for the Christmas season, he was found dead at his apartment of an apparent heart attack.

He was 77 years old, and had been suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma for some time.

Months after Mr. Clark's death, though, Miniature Memories remains on display at the mall six days a week from noon to 5 p.m. His daughter, Kathy Clark-Shock, and her husband, Joe, wouldn't have it any other way.

"I just want the public to know we're still here. His legacy is going to live on," said Mrs. Clark-Shock, who takes turns manning the display with her husband and relatives Bill and Debbie Miller.

"This is all he wanted. He's smiling any time he sees those trains go around," Mr. Shock added.

Several locations

Miniature Memories was first displayed in a space at the Keyser Oak Shopping Center. From there, Mr. Clark moved to the Oppenheim Building, then to the Scranton Marketplace on Capouse Avenue, then to a space attached to the Gertrude Hawk building on East Drinker Street in Dunmore.

He remained at the latter spot for 15 years, until Gertrude Hawk left. That's when the Mall at Steamtown approached him with an offer to use one of its spaces rent-free.

"They made it sound so wonderful," Mrs. Clark-Shock said. "My father was so excited. I saw how happy it made him. ... You would never think he didn't feel good, he was so happy."

The day Mr. Clark passed away, people tossed roses into the store. One man drove all the way down from Connecticut to pay his respects. Another man told Mrs. Clark-Shock at the viewing that her father had helped him find a place to live.

Even now, complete strangers occasionally show up at Mrs. Clark-Shock's pet grooming business to offer their condolences.

"There's never, ever been a bad word said about my father," she said. "He helped people when he needed help himself."

For those who have never seen it, Miniature Memories is an abundance of charms.

Four trains, among them a replica of the Lackawanna Railroad's famed Phoebe Snow, run through a vast landscape - it covers over 1,000 square feet - of scarily spot-on mini versions of such iconic sites as The Scranton Times Building, Everhart Museum, Scranton City Hall, Nay Aug Park, Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel, Glider Diner and Scranton Electric Building, complete with lit-up sign.

The Nicholson Bridge is represented in all its splendor, as are long-closed establishments like Samter's and Burschel Dairy, and retro versions of McDonald's and Burger King.

And, fittingly, there's a miniature St. Joseph's Center, which held a huge place in Mr. Clark's heart. His son, David, had resided there before passing away at the age of 2.

"He actually would go to these places and they would give him the blueprints," Mrs. Clark-Shock said. "Then he would scale it down to exactly how it looks. He was a genius at that."

The Dunder Mifflin Paper Co., of TV's "The Office," is housed in a skyscraper that's being attacked by King Kong, and not far from that is the sinister Bates Motel from "Psycho." There are various other fictional businesses, too, most of which Mr. Clark named after his relatives, including the fire-engulfed Hotel Krystyn, named for one of Mr. Clark's granddaughters. (All told, he had three children, 10 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.)

Interior details

Lift the roofs of the buildings, and inside you'll find well-decorated interiors populated with Lilliputian people.

In addition to the trains and buildings, the walls of the space are filled with Mr. Clark's cherished collection of model cars, including Presidential limousines like Franklin Roosevelt's "Sunshine Special," which was also Mr. Clark's nickname for his late wife, Shirley.

Shortly after noon on a recent day, a steady stream of mall patrons passed through Miniature Memories. Among them were Dunmore resident Tom Bolus, who was making the latest of his many visits to the display.

"He (Mr. Clark) was quite a guy," Mr. Bolus said. "It's a nice tribute to the area. It brings back a lot of memories."

Mrs. Clark-Shock and her husband are trying to keep Miniature Memories exactly as Mr. Clark wanted it. Still, they have added a few new wrinkles, like their recent decision to begin hosting children's birthday parties, something Mr. Clark had always wanted to do.

"My father's biggest joy was seeing a little kid absolutely mesmerized by the display," Mrs. Clark-Shock said.

Meanwhile, on the weekend of June 4 and 5, the display will celebrate what would have been Mr. Clark's 78th birthday. While his death may have been unexpected, Mr. Clark made it clear to Mrs. Clark-Shock upon the display's move to the mall that he was a very content man.

"He said, 'My dreams have come true. I'm happy now. I can rest,'" she said. "He left with no unfinished business."

Visit the display
When and where: Don Clark's Miniature Memories model train display is open from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays at its location on the second floor of the Mall at Steamtown (near the food court).

Details: Admission to the display is free, but donations are accepted on behalf of St. Joseph's Center and the Voluntary Action Center's Christmas Holiday Bureau.

More: For information on the display, visit www.dcminiaturememories.com.

Cherokee Depot to celebrate Train Day' on May 7, 2011

Chronicle Times: Cherokee, Iowa: Cherokee Depot to celebrate Train Day'
There will be a new event hosted at the Cherokee Depot. For the first time, Depot Renovation, Inc. will celebrate National Train Day on Saturday, May 7. Members of Depot Renovation, Inc., the group responsible for saving and restoring the old Illinois Central Railroad Depot to its historic significance, invites the public to the depot to their first ever celebration of National Train Day.
They will have an Open House from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. during which time coffee, cookies, and juice will be served, tours of the depot and the caboose will be available, and the Little Sioux Valley Model Railroad (HO Scale) will be operating for the enjoyment of kids of all ages.

Later in the day, from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. they will have a formal presentation by Dr. Rudolph "Rudy" Daniels, retired professor of history. The title of his presentation will be "How Railroad Trains Made Our Country Great and Strong."

Following Dr. Daniels' presentation, desserts and coffee will be served.

CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN: Model Railroad Garden Prepares for 12th Season

GardenNews.biz: Model Railroad Garden Prepares for 12th Season - CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN
GLENCOE, Ill. (April 13, 2011) — Gather your family together for a remarkably fast tour of the United States when the Model Railroad Garden: "Landmarks of America" exhibition opens for its 12th season on Saturday, May 7. Walking through the 7,500-square-foot exhibition, you’ll pass close to 50 familiar miniature American landmarks, all handcrafted from natural materials. Each season the 17 garden-scale trains travel over 22,000 miles past the landmarks, which are surrounded by carefully planned landscapes of 5,000 plants. This year, the Garden adds a new train line: the Southern Pacific Daylight.

The Model Railroad Garden was designed and created by Applied Imagination in Alexandria, Ky., with landscape architect Paul Busse in the lead. Through the family business, Paul has passed on his fascination with trains to his son, Brian Busse. Their exhibitions are in numerous private and public spaces, including botanic gardens and arboreta across the United States. Applied Imagination also works on the Chicago Botanic Garden's indoor winter holiday exhibition, Wonderland Express.

Preparation for the exhibition begins in January when Garden engineers repair the trains in the railroad office and the team from Applied Imagination build the new features in their Kentucky workshop. In March, the railroad garden horticulturist pruned the more mature trees and shrubs to return them to scale. In mid-April, a six-person crew from Applied Imagination arrives to level the track, replace bridges, and clean and repair the landmarks after winter storage. Up to six Garden railroad engineers work with the crew to prepare the 1,600 feet of track for the trains. One horticulturist and two seasonal staff spend two weeks planting more than 1,200 tiny trees, shrubs, groundcovers and flowering plants in close to 300 varieties to make a realistic landscape around the buildings. A group of miniaturists comes in a few days before the exhibition opens to add miniature cars and figurines to create a storybook feel. The final touch is adding a series of handwritten signs that tell visitors interesting facts about the landmarks, plants or trains.

During the summer, Model Railroad Garden engineers work together to ensure the trains run smoothly and on time. Volunteer greeters inform visitors about the trains and locations depicted in the garden. Train lines include the Chicago Northwestern Commuter (known as a fallen flag line), the Union Pacific and every child's favorite, Thomas the Tank Engine. Many visitors come to gather ideas for their own backyard garden railway. Garden railroading is the fastest growing segment of hobby railroading. Today, the United States has as many as 25,000 garden railways.

The Model Railroad Garden is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through Sunday, Oct. 30, with special hours until 8 p.m. from Saturday, June 4, through Monday, Sept. 5, weather permitting. The Model Railroad Garden closes at 3 p.m. on Friday, June 24, for the Summer Dinner Dance, a benefit that supports the Garden’s conservation, education and research programs.

Families can celebrate Halloween in the Model Railroad Garden during Trains, Tricks & Treats from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 29, and Sunday, October 30.

Model Railroad Garden admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 3-12. Garden members receive $1 off these rates. Garden Plus members and levels above receive free entry on Wednesdays. A 10-visit pass is available for $28. Strollers are not permitted in the exhibition; however, stroller parking is located near the entrance.

Admission to the Chicago Botanic Garden is free. Select event fees apply. Parking is $20 per car; free for Garden members. For more information on the Model Railroad Garden, visit www.chicagobotanic.org/railroad, or call (847) 835-5440.

Mark the day: 30 April, 2011 in Toledo, Ohio

The News-Messenger: Train Day celebration set for April 30 in Toledo
TOLEDO -- Toledo's annual celebration of trains and train travel is from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 30 at the historic Amtrak station, 415 Emerald St., and upstairs at the restored Grand Lobby of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza. All events and parking are free. Additional parking is available at Owens Corning World Headquarters with a shuttle to the station.

Train Day events include tours of an Amtrak passenger car, a drawing for train travel, huge operating model train layouts in the Grand Lobby, music, art, food and children's activities on both floors. Norfolk Southern is bringing in its locomotive simulator used for training railroad engineers.

Train Day opens at 9:30 a.m. with public comments from elected officials and transportation professionals.

Amtrak officials said Train Day in Toledo is one of the largest Train Day celebrations in the country.

Train fans enjoy show

TheTimesHerald.com (Port Huron, Michigan): Train fans enjoy show

McMorran Pavilion looked more like Grand Central Station on Saturday as the 29th annual Railroad Show and Swap Meet took place.

Dozens of people watched various trains circle their tracks and picked up trains or scenery for their own tracks at home.

Bob and Kathy Lipke of New Baltimore were looking for extra cars for Bob Lipke's 1953 train set that he planned to set up for his 2 ½-year-old grandson, Dylan.

"It's a tradition; it was passed on from my parents and I should pass it on to my grandkids," Bob Lipke said.

Four-year-old Jacob Schoenrock of Capac got his interest in trains from his father, a model railroader, said Jacob's mother Becky Schoenrock.

Jacob was able to buy tractors and cars for his train village back home at the meet.

He said his favorite part about trains is "that they run on the tracks."

Three-year-old Dylan Collins' favorite train -- Thomas the Tank Engine -- wasn't at the show, but he seemed to enjoy watching the other trains circle their tracks.

"He loves these things," said Dylan's mother, Donna Collins of Port Huron.

She said she could see Dylan upgrading from Thomas to model trains as he gets older.

Dylan wasn't the only one enjoying the show, either.

"I think it's pretty amazing," Collins said about the show. "I love to see all the displays."

Train enthusiasts also were having a good time.

It was the first time in years members of the Capital Area Railway Society of Lansing attended the show. The group had set up a 20-foot by 50-foot display with several trains circling various tracks.

"It's a hobby where I believe people of all ages can share in the industry," said Tim Lewis of Williamston and member of the Lansing group. "We have fun doing it. Young and old alike can just enjoy the hobby."

Fred Cesefske, a member of the show's sponsoring group the Huron Modeler Club, said they like having the event to get more people involved in the hobby.

"It's a good thing to promote the hobby to the public," Cesefske said. "We like to see the kids come in because that's the future of the hobby."

Train show brings hundreds of model railroad enthusiasts to Windham

Norwich Bulletin: Train show brings hundreds of model railroad enthusiasts to Windham

Willimantic, Conn. — Hundreds of train enthusiasts and families wove their way through model train displays Sunday.

Though smaller than last year’s, Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum’s 18th annual train show at Windham High School was a success, said Mark Granville, the president of the railroad museum.

“Every year it gets a little smaller as fewer and fewer people come,” he said. “But the people who do come always enjoy it.”

At 24 by 32 feet, the Mohegan Pequot Model Railroad’s set was among the largest. The individual links in each set are modular and created by members, they said.

“Some members tend to have certain railroads or certain eras that they emulate,” said member Bob Applegate, of Gales Ferry. For Applegate, who grew up near New Haven, it’s the New Haven Line.

The Willimantic train show is one of the larger fundraisers for the museum, Granville said. Each year, the show brings in 300 to 500 people, and about $2,000 for museum upkeep. But the buzz the show generates about the museum is priceless, he said.

Tom Cleveland, of North Stonington, said he made the drive in hopes of finding some new model trains for his collection.

A train collector for 25 years, Cleveland said the train show in Willimantic is one of the best, and only, places within a reasonable driving distance to buy models.

“I’m just checking to see what’s here,” he said, perusing through boxed sets of miniature freight cars and cabooses. “You never know what you’re going to find.”

Each year, Granville said, the crowd is largely split between collectors and train enthusiasts like Cleveland and families with small children in tow.

Adam Cote, of Mansfield, fit into the latter category.

“The kids like trains,” he said, moving 3-year-old Jasper from one arm to the other. In front of him, 5-year-old Amber and 10-year-old Levi looked curiously through clear plastic protecting the Mohegan Pequot display.

For Cote, seeing the model trains is about passing on tradition. His own interest in trains started from a young age, with stories from his grandfather, a train driver on the Central Vermont line, Cote said.

For now, his children’s interest in trains is somewhat more limited. They’ve seen smaller train displays in Chaplin, and at home, the family has wooden train sets, but no electric sets, Cote said.

“You never know though,” he said. “Maybe they’ll get into it.”

US Railways: Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railway

The Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railway was incorporated in 1907 and completed a line from Mogadore to Akron, Ohio, 8 miles, in 1913.

In 1920 the AC&Y obtained control of the Northern Ohio Railway from the Lake Erie & Western. The Northern Ohio had a 161-mileroute from Akron west to Delphos, Ohio.

AC&Y also purchased outright a 9 mile portion of the Northern Ohio from Akron to Copley Junction.

Akron was noted for the manufacture of tires, and over the years tires and inner tubes moving from Akron to Detroit via the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton interchange at Columbus Grove constituted a significant part of AC&Y's freight traffic.

On January 14, 1944, the AC&Y and the Northern Ohio were consolidated as the Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railway. In 1947 AC&Y considered extending its line east to Youngstown for access to the steel industry there and also to serve as a route around the congestion of Cleveland, but nothing came of it.

In 1949, AC&Y's president proposed a 130-mile Ohio River-to-Lake Erie two-way conveyor belt. AC&Y was, understandably, the only railroad to support the proposal or to advocate passage of bills by the Ohio legislature granting right of eminnent domain to the conveyer belt company.

Norfolk & Western purchased the AC&Y in 1964 at the time it merged with the Nickel Plate and leased the Wabash. N&W dissolved the AC&Y on January 1, 1982.

Location of Headquarters: Akron, Ohio
Miles of railroad operated: 1929 - 171, 1964 - 171
Number of locomotives: 1929 - 25, 1964 - 18
Number of passenger cars: 1929 - 223
Number of freight cars: 1929 - 223
Number of company service cars: 1929 - 28
Number of freight and company service cars: 1964 - 1,687
Reporting Marks: ACY
Subsidiaries and affiliated railroads, 1964: Akron & Barberton Belt (25%)
Successors: Norfolk & Western (TWG)
Portions still operated (current as of 1994): Mogadore-Sycamore: Norfolk & Western

Model railroad enthusiasts want to share their trains

Rossmoorenews (Walnut Creek California): Model railroad enthusiasts want to share their trains

This article is from December 29, 2010.
By Cathy Tallyn Staff writer
Ralf Parton looks at the vacated office of Channel 28 and sees possibilities. The president of the Railroad Club, he envisions model trains and the happy faces of Rossmoor residents' grandchildren.

The club already has a model railroad layout in the small office behind what was the television station quarters on the second floor of Dollar Clubhouse. Since the station left for new quarters at Creekside, the club has been given that space and will also keep the room that houses the club's train layout. By having more space, the current three-tired layout can be expanded.

It's just in the planning stages, but Parton and other Rossmoor railroaders already have ideas. They see two model railroad layouts and a viewing area for visitors. And, more importantly, the club's railroad room can be used during the day.

The problem for the railroaders in the past had been that there was no access to the train room unless no one from Channel 28 was there, Parton said. That meant members could only run the trains on Fridays and at night. There were few visitors and the club wants that changed.

“From the beginning, the Railroad Club's intention was to share their love of trains and railroading with all the residents of Rossmoor and their relatives,” Parton said. “We want to see greater access for the public so we can share (our trains). Everyone likes to watch trains.”

He said that the expansion plans are “just in the dreaming stages.” The club's 70 members will give their input to the committee.

Parton can already envision the smiles of grandchildren and their grandparents.

“There is no more joy for a model builder than to share his miniature world of trains Š with others,” he said.

Sertoma show features antiques, model trains

Sertoma show features antiques, model trains
The show is this weekend - April 16-17, 2011, in Binghamton, NY

If reality TV shows such as "Pawn Stars" and "American Pickers" are any guide, Americans have become increasingly willing to part with their antiques — for the right price. On the flip side, collectors are always looking for bargains.

But whether you're a seller or a buyer, the place to be this weekend is Binghamton University's Events Center for the 29th Annual Million-Dollar Antiques Show and Model Train Show. The three-day event — a fundraiser for the Binghamton Sertoma Club — will feature more than 150 dealers in crystal, glass, textiles, rugs, jewelry and more. Also there will be expert repair and restoration specialists

Promoter Chip Hunt, who also owns Midtown Antiques in Binghamton, said that although the long-running PBS series "Antiques Roadshow" has done much to educate the general public about historical items, the newer shows offer a more capitalistic approach that fits the current times.

"A lot of folks are coming to the shows more and more because they're curious about what they have at home — and some are entertaining selling their heirlooms because of the pressures of the economy," Hunt said earlier this week. "People are asking themselves: Am I going to keep this? Is the family going to be interested in retaining these items for the future? And if not, how can I get the best price by selling it?"

For those mainly interested to learn an item's value, appraiser David Mapes will host a free "Antiques Roadshow"-style panel from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Attracting a different sort of collector is the model train show, which returns for the second year, Hunt said. Along with vendors dealing in all manner of track gauges and accessories, two large displays will offer thrills for all ages.

Hunt said older folks often relive their childhoods through train sets.

"In the old days, it was very rewarding for a kid to receive a model train under the Christmas tree, and so many people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s continue to have fond memories of their childhood when they used to have their trains," he said. "These are the people who like to come out to the train shows to look and reminisce."

Commercial Trains: SamTrans close to disappearing

SFExaminer: SamTrans close to disappearing
While much has been made about the devastating service cuts being considered by Caltrain, an even worse scenario could befall the rail operator’s sister agency, SamTrans.

Depending on its funding contribution to Caltrain, SamTrans could run out of cash within three years, forcing the agency to cease operations entirely. Even if the transit agency slashes its current annual allocation to Caltrain by two-thirds — a potential death knell for the rail operator — SamTrans would still become bankrupt by 2015, according to the agency’s latest financial models.

“This is how serious our situation is,” said Mark Simon, a spokesman for the agency. “We are looking at the very real possibility of having to cease operations.”

Since 2006, SamTrans has faced a mounting structural deficit, forcing the agency to slash service, increase fares and lay off workers. The agency, which has a $138 million annual budget, has been hurt significantly by dwindling funding contributions from state and federal sources, along with its onerous debt-financing program, which includes nearly $13 million in annual repayments for the BART extension to the Peninsula. SamTrans also has yet to be fully repaid by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the Valley Transportation Authority for buying up the rail right of way that allowed Caltrain to operate.

Those factors have left the agency with an untenable funding model, and one that could leave SamTrans’ 45,000 daily riders — 60 percent of whom have no car — without any service.

With the future of the agency in doubt, SamTrans officials are set to embark on a comprehensive service plan, the most extensive evaluation of its operations in a decade, Simon said.

That project will include an assessment of SamTrans’ service routes, what time it operates and the size of its vehicles. It will take a year to complete.

“We’re looking at everything from the tires up,” Simon said. “We need to see how we can create a more efficient model.”

One option that SamTrans is ready to pursue is reducing its annual contribution to Caltrain — which is managed by the same transit district — from $14.7 million to $4.9 million. That reduction has been a main contributor to Caltrain’s $30.3 million projected deficit, a shortfall that has the rail agency contemplating slashing its service to include only weekday peak-time trains.

Even if SamTrans cuts its annual contributions to Caltrain, it will run out of money by August 2015. If it continues to pay $14.7 million a year, the agency will be bankrupt by April 2014.

SamTrans’ financial model is based on an evaluation of the agency’s expenditures, revenue and operating reserves. The agency will become bankrupt — and thus be forced to fold — when it runs out of reserve funding to pay its debt.

Buses syncing up with train routes
While the long-term future of SamTrans remains in doubt, the transit agency is set to undergo service changes this month that will help it out in the short term.

Starting April 10, SamTrans will change service on 19 bus routes. The aim of the service changes is to connect lines better with BART and Caltrain stations, improve on-time performance and realize cost savings with increased operating efficiencies.

Some trips will be discontinued, such as an afternoon bus on the 72 line. On other lines, such as the 280 and 281, weekend and weekday service times will be changed to improve on-time performance. Nearly all trips on the 271 line will be adjusted by five minutes to connect better with departing and arriving trains at the Redwood City Caltrain station.

SamTrans reviews and changes its scheduling operations three times a year in response to traffic conditions and passenger travel patterns. The new scheduling times will soon be available at bus stops, ticket vendors and on the agency’s website. — Will Reisman

Mentor Railroad Museum in Financial Crisis

Mentor, Ohio:

http://www.wrmrrm.org/

Mentor Patch: Mentor Railroad Museum in Financial Crisis
When you visit the Western Reserve Model Railroad Museum’s website, you can’t help but notice the dozens of photos that show children who are mesmerized by the museum’s extensive layouts of tiny model trains chugging around miniature cities, towns, rolling countryside hills, flat farmlands and rugged mountainside terrains.

Last year, the Mentor museum attracted 30,000 people and created many happy memories.

But the Western Reserve Model Railroad Museum may soon become a memory, too.

“There is a definite possibility we are going to be evicted,” said Rick Montgomery, the museum’s curator and board director. “We need to raise a pretty good chunk of change and we need to do it quickly.”

The museum, which leases an 18,900-square-foot area at 7320 Justin Way, owes $100,000 in back rent and utility payments.

Montgomery said he received a notice from the property manager, Anthony Madden of Ohio Realty Advisors LLC of Richfield, that an “eviction is inevitable and only a question of time.”

“I will be sending a new default letter today (March 30) as in the past and no longer accepting payments unless significant pay down on the balance owed can be achieved,” Madden wrote in an email to Montgomery. “We need to discuss a plan to take back possession of the premises.”

However, Montgomery insists Ohio Realty is still working with him to prevent an eviction. Madden did not return a call and email message seeking comment.

Nevertheless, Montgomery said Ohio Realty has been very good to the museum and he does not want to paint property management company in a bad light.

“They (Ohio Realty) have been very willing to work with us. They have been very cooperative,” said Montgomery. “But they are a business, and they need and deserve to be paid.”

Montgomery said Ohio Realty may lease part of the museum’s space (about 5,000 square feet) and an adjoining 70,000-square-foot warehouse space to a new business. Montgomery said museum volunteers made improvements to part of the warehouse and had been planning to use it as a convention center to feature shows.

The museum was planning a $22 million expansion project and expected to receive $10.4 million in various state and federal grants, as well as corporate contributions in 2009, according to Montgomery. However, in early 2010, he learned the grants would not materialize.

“At the end of the first quarter of 2010, I started getting phone calls and letters that either the grants would not be given because of economic conditions or because of government policy changes,” said Montgomery. “It got to the point where I didn’t even want to answer the phone anymore. It was depressing.”

The museum was planning to use those grant and corporate funds to restore its steam and diesel locomotive engines and other train cars, build a storage facility and a passenger station, install railroad tracks, and renovate an adjoining warehouse space into a convention center to feature shows and other events.

Montgomery said the museum’s board of directors and about 80 volunteers have been asking everyone and anyone for donations.

“All we need is about 400 people to donate $50 a month, or $600 this year, and that will be enough to help us move forward and become self-sufficient,” Montgomery said.

Those funds, if raised, would total more than $200,000 and enable the museum to pay off the landlord and use the balance for continuing operations.

Montgomery said the museum is generating about $6,000 a month in revenues from its gift shop, snack bar, train rides and contributions from patrons.

Additional revenue programs would eventually generate about $11,000 a month, said Montgomery.

However, the monthly operating expenses of the museum, which includes rent, utilities and other expenses, amounts to $15,000 a month. The museum has no full-time or part-time employees. Montgomery does not receive compensation.

“We have placed some other offers on the table with the landlord to try to resolve the situation possibly by downsizing or moving to a smaller space, but we just don’t know at this point,” Montgomery said. "It's still very much in the air

UK: Melksham train show resorts to bus service

Wiltshire, England: Melksham train show resorts to bus service
Organisers of the Trainwest Model Railway Exhibition in Melksham on April 9 and 10 are laying on a shuttle bus from Chippenham Railway Station to the show because there are so few trains to Melksham.

Trainwest is the largest model railway exhibition in Wiltshire. The show will be held at the Christie Miller Sports Centre and will feature 65 stands including 25 working model railway layouts.

Exhibition manager Geoff Endacott said, “On Saturday the first service from Chippenham leaves at 3.38pm and gets to Melksham at 3.47pm, which is nearly six hours after the show opens.

“On Sunday the train leaves Chippenham at 6.35pm and arrives at 6.44pm – in time to see the last vans leaving the car park two hours after we have started to pack up.”

A free shuttle bus will instead run from Chippenham Station to the show on both days, with four return trips.

Tickets are available at the Christie Miller Centre, at Melksham Tourist Information Centre, and on the door. More details at www.trainwest.org.uk.

Residents ‘ride the rails’ for train show

Ranson, WV: Journal-News.net: Residents ‘ride the rails’ for train show
by Matt Armstrong

RANSON - Hundreds of area residents got off their cabooses Saturday and came out to the Ranson Civic Center to take in the sights and spectacle of the Bunker Hill Train Club's biannual model railroad show.

The club's show, which has been going on for more than 10 years, has had to change venues several times because it keeps outgrowing buildings, and Saturday's show was the first time it had been held at the Ranson Civic Center, said Bunker Hill Train Club President Joe Vanorsdale, adding that the show offers something for almost any model railroad enthusiast.

"They just come here to find different model railroad stuff, the kids are trying to learn a new hobby ... some of your more advanced hobbyists are looking for different things, collectors are looking for different things," he said. "Everybody likes something different."

The train show showcased about 60 vendors with more than 150 tables set up, selling everything from antique model trains, scenery for model train displays and railroad memorabilia in the form of books, old magazines and train postcards.

Apart from the numerous vendors on display, several organizations set up various model railroad displays throughout the Civic Center.

Mel Agne, with the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society Inc., said his organization, which sets up displays at several train shows each year, designs its displays to demonstrate what the landscape might have looked like when the Western Maryland railroad was in its heyday during the '50s and '60s.

"Because we're part of the historical society, our mission is to depict the Western Maryland railway the way it appeared in a time frame that most people considered the glory days of railroading," Agne said. "It's quite rewarding when people come up and say, 'Oh, I know where this is,' without reading the sign."

As much as the train show might have been about education or railroading hobbyists, Vanorsdale said the main focus is trying to introduce kids to a new hobby that can be fun and inexpensive.

Andrew Study, a 6-year-old from Shepherdstown, was one such youngster eager to pore over the trains on display and the different pieces of memorabilia. Andrew said he's interested in trains because they're on tracks and there aren't that many around anymore.

Andrew's mom, Julie Study, said that Andrew and his dad enjoy building model train displays, and Andrew asks to go to a train show almost every other weekend.

"We started with Thomas (the Train), and he makes the wooden tracks and he gets really intricate now," Andrew's mom said. "He kind of advanced, about two years ago he started talking about 'I prefer the trains without face.'"

More than 500 people attended the show, and the Bunker Hill Train Club liked the Ranson Civic Center so much that it will hold its next train show at the venue on Oct. 22, Vanorsdale said. Additional information on the Bunker Hill Train Club or model railroading is available online at www.bunkerhilltrainclub.org.

Manifesto

This blog is dedicated to both full size, and model trains around the world.