Manhattan Modelers | April 2024 Newsletter
Apr 02, 2024 12:05 pm
Newsletter | April 2024
Hello Manhattan Modeler,
April is a busy month full of holidays, spring cleaning and a big plus in my book it heralds the end of the colder weather. Despite me trying my best to get away from cold weather, April 8th will find me in the Adirondacks to view the total Solar Eclipse and preparing my family’s summer house. My wife is a teacher and my kids are off school so they stay upstate all summer. Our family house was the former office of a lumber company that had a railroad in the early 20th century.
The Adirondack Scenic Railroad will be running a sold out special Solar Eclipse train from Utica to Thendara station. They are supposed to get snow there on Wednesday so I imagine I will get some more work in on the roof of my caboose.
Work on a wooden railroad car is never really finished, even a replica of one. I built it years ago for fun. My kids use it as a clubhouse. The caboose is a copy of one of the four cabooses that ran on the logging line that our house was the office of. It sits on the ties of some of the tracks in the former mill railroad yard. This will be the earliest in the year I will be up there so I’m looking forward to that.
Here is the Caboose in the fall. I’m curious to see how it weathered over the winter. There is always some work to do on it. I have pictures of it under 5 feet of snow. One year a woodpecker really loved the echoing noise it made and left some nice holes for me to repair. It is unfinished and a very long-term project. No wheels… but no rails either.
The most important thing that happened to our group this month is that Manhattan Modelers has passed the achievement milestone of becoming a Special Interest Group (SIG) recognized by the NMRA (National Model Railroad Association). I would like to thank all our Board of Directors for their help and assistance in getting this done. I want to single out Dan Free for really doing much of the leg work in organizing and getting the proper paperwork filed as well as escorting the filing through the whole process. At the bottom of this newsletter you will see a new ongoing feature, the required NMRA coda recognizing our new SIG status under the NMRA.
March was jam packed as far as model railroading for me. Sadly, I didn’t get as much model building time as I wanted. Too many things pulling me too many directions. On March 6th I gave a presentation on some of my research of 19th century New York City Elevated Railroads for the Sunrise Trail NMRA Division’s Wednesday night clinics and presentations series. I was a bit nervous about presenting it, but I would be happy to give it again if there was interest. I feel like having to organize my thoughts helps clarify exactly what I want to pursue. Historic subjects need a time focus or things get too layered and confusing.
Half of a stereograph of an 1870s era New York Elevated train consisting of a steam dummy and two shad-belly cars passing the Greenwich Street Yard. I am planning a small layout of this yard.
March 18th was the start of a weeklong session of clinics and presentations by the North-East Region of the NMRA called NERx. It was presented on the NMRA YouTube channel where it remains viewable. Heath Hurwitz hosted a round table that first day about small space model railroading. Andreas Werder, Joey Buczek and I participated in the discussion of the realities of model railroading in small spaces. It was a lively discussion, and the comments raised some interesting questions on how modelers with limited space can still participate in the hobby.
Heath Hurwitz has passed a milestone in his model railroading journey he now has an operable layout. His Manhattan themed “Riverside Transfer” N scale layout. He held a shakedown run March 24th and a real operation session March 30th. The technology he has incorporated into the operation is, as expected, quite special. Congratulations to Heath.
Last week I brought a stack of Manhattan Modelers postcards to Alan Spitz, proprietor of the only hobby shop in Manhattan. The Red Caboose on 45th street. He agreed to display them at the checkout. Maybe this will raise our visibility among modelers here in the city.
We have many more events planned and in store this year. This month our meeting will be held at the New York Society of Model Engineers. Like our group, they were first organized as a modeling group here in the city, but they moved to the suburbs for real estate reasons so I’m sure it will be interesting to visit them.
Manhattan Modelers Postcards
Heath Hurwitz has printed Manhattan Modelers Postcards and we want to get them out to local modelers toy see if we can raise interest in our group. We plan to get them into local hobby shops and clubs.
If you know modelers in the city and surrounds who would be interested in joining our group please ask for some to distribute.
Special Interest Group Status
We received NMRA's approval of our SIG application on March 17th, so we've accomplished one of our initial goals. This will entail a bit of housekeeping on our part, so stay tuned for more developments as we progress.
Manhattan Modeler Application Form
Call for Articles
As always, we are always looking for articles for the Manhattan Modelers Newsletter. Do you think you have something that would interest other Manhattan Modelers please contact me. Likewise if you have any questions or suggestions.
Please feel free to contact me at estepandyprojects@gmail.com.
Thank you for your time. Have a great Modeling Month!
Trip to the New York Society of Model Engineers
The Manhattan Modelers April meeting will occur at the Society Headquarters of the New York Society of Model Engineers in Carlstadt, New Jersey on Saturday April 13th.
NYSME is preparing for their 100th anniversary in 2026. The New York Society of Model Engineers is the oldest model railroad groups (the group self-defines in mission as a society with a public duty and not a club) in the United States. It was officially founded in 1926 in Manhattan and united many early model and railroad enthusiasts. Initially, NYSME catered not only to model railroading but all forms of modeling. Boats, racing cars and airplanes were all focuses of the model making of members. The Society has always incorporated a model shop with equipment for members to build and maintain their models.
A short RF&P train at the top of the O scale NYSME layout. This is an area that cannot be seen from the normal public viewing area.
Jacob Aster was an early member and allowed the group to use the basement of the Knickerbocker Building in Times Square for workshop and display space. The groups NYSME standards helped establish the first NMRA standards for O scale. A major effort the society followed up on was manufacturing suitable O scale steel code 145 model rail. The current O scale layout has many sections laid with this vintage rail as do many other early O scale layouts.
Some notable names specifically associated with model railroading I have seen with ties to the early modeling group include,
-Al C. Kalmbach,
I have seen correspondence that he attended several NYSME events. This makes sense because there were not many early modeling groups that focused on railroads. Kalmbach of course published many magazines like Trains and Model Railroader.
-William K. Walthers,
William Walthers, like Al. Kalmbach did not live in the New York City area but did attend NYSME events. Walthers established a large mail order model company selling the products of other NYSME members.
-Ed Alexander,
Ed was a NYSME member who lived in New Rochelle NY. He started a model company called American Model Railway Company in 1927. He sold OO, O and 1 scale castings and model parts. In the 1930’s Alexander focused more on O scale and offered full models of engines. He was commissioned by the C&O RR to build an 80 ft long o scale layout for the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition. This was at the time the largest O scale layout built. He was very interested in the early railroad era and wrote several books on the subject. Alexander designed the 1800’s era 4-4-0 for the “Frontiersman” set made by American Flyer in the 1950s. He was also a toy train collector and was one of the two founders of the TCA. His model molds were acquired by House of Duddy and are in some cases still in production.
This unassembled O scale static model is of the DeWitt Clinton as made by E.P. Alexander for the New York Central Railroad. This model was commissioned by the NYC to go in the observation cars of the Empire State Express passenger train. Alexander made additional models as kits for sale. The model box cover is the repurposed artwork from a book that Alexander wrote.
I have yet to build this pewter and brass model. It is just propped it up for the photograph. I am planning to figure out how to put steel tires on and motorize it. There is a lot of flash on the peter castings. The original circa1831 DeWitt Clinton was built for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad in Manhattan at the West Point Foundry.
-Minton Cronkhite,
In 1928 he lived in Greenwich CT and modeled the Pennsy in O scale. With his neighbors he had a company called Crovan Scale Models. In the 1930s he moved to San Marino, California and started modeling the Santa Fe. Unlike most modelers of the time he did not use an outside 3rd rail but he modeled with only 2 rails. He started a long-term relationship with the Santa Fe RR building exhibition layouts for the 1933 Century of Progress, 1935 California-Pacific Internation Exposition, 1937 Texas Centennial Exposition and the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. His most well-known layout was the longest lasting. The one he designed for the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology the 2340 square foot Q scale (1/45 scale O scale is 1/48 scale) Museum and Santa Fe layout with 1000 feet of track and 40 switches. It ran from 1941 to 2002 when it was replaced by an HO scale layout.
-Fred Icken,
Started a model railroad supply business called Icken-Barker Models first in Harrington Park, NJ and then Ridgefield, NJ. They specialized in O scale locomotive kits but also offered some rolling stock and motors as well as castings and detail parts. Later as Icken Models in the 1930’s the firm moved to Palisades Park, NJ. Models were offered as kits as well as finished ready to run versions. He was a charter member of the NMRA and published many articles in early issues of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine.
Here is a 1930’s era Icken O scale box cab engine. The engine shells were cast bronze. This is a very heavy model.
-Joe Fisher,
He lived in Manhattan and made many, many custom O scale passenger cars in wood and cardstock following protype drawings. He had ads placed in many model railroad magazines. Joe would hand deliver his cars to his customers by railroad. He would go on occasional train trips with the completed cars and customers had to meet him on the platform to accept their models. His hand made models compare favorably to commercial models even today. There is a strong secondhand market for his models today and he made so many that they come up for sale often.
Together, Fisher, Icken and Alexander built all the rolling stock for the extremely popular and influential 1939 New York Worlds Fair O scale layout. This layout measured 160 by 40 feet was O scale and had 3500 feet of track, 500 cars and 50 engines. The engines were lettered for “American Railroads”. It operated 8 hours a day for the two-year run of the fair.
After several moves within the city the Society moved to New Jersey just after WW2, to the Lackawanna Hoboken terminal where they built what was at the time the largest model railroad in the world. They had a huge space in the former ferry waiting area until asked to move again. In 1958 after this eviction the society purchased their current building in Carlstadt, NJ right on the border of Rutherford, NJ. The building had been a grocery distributor and the society renovated it to include a shop, office/library space, and room for HO scale and O scale layouts.
Here is a view of the circus train passing through the O scale freight yard.
The HO layout is called the “Union, Hoboken and Overland”. It is DCC and has a two track mainline with a separate branch line. There is a large freight yard with a working hump yard. Most of the 5.5 scale miles of track is hand laid code 83. It has 237 switches with tortoise motors.
The O scale layout is called the “Union Connecting”. It is loosely based on the Erie RR between Jersey City and Port Jarvis. There is a large freight yard and a coach yard in Jersey City along with a trolley system run on overhead wiring. The track is hand laid code 145. The layout has 200 switches, 28 double slip switches and 17 scale miles of track. The layout is DC controlled but members are experimenting with Soundtraxx’s “Blunami” control system.
An O scale Erie train passing through New Jersey.
An interesting bit of trivia is that the O scale switch motors are made of WW2 surplus bomber gauge motors.
NYSME has a large collection of railroad memorabilia as well. Much of it was donated by the railroads themselves over the years. There are locomotive headlamps, bells and whistles. The Erie RR’s Carlstadt, NJ railroad station sign hangs proudly in the building. All this along with unusual items like an elaborate B&O dwarf signal from their operation on Staten Island.
A really very special collection at the NYSME is the passenger tail sign or drumhead collection. One member of the Society, George Brachmann started correspondence with many railroads asking for the signs that passenger trains used to carry on the last car that advertised the name of the train and railroad it ran on. He wrote the railroads for these donations as the trains that carried them went out of service. He was able to collect a huge quantity of them from railroads all over the United States and Canada. As a result of his effort the Society now has one of the largest collections of them in the country.
The society has graciously invited us to hold our April meeting at their building. I will coordinate a group to leave from Port Authority Bus Terminal on the morning of Saturday April 13th. The 163/164 NJT bus stop at Patterson Plank Road and Jane Street is only one block from the NYSME building. I will include the address for people who wish to drive or find another way. I will have the drumheads and tail sign collection lit up and the rest of the layout lights turned on, but I really don’t know if I can wrangle other people to operate the layouts. I am happy to give tours and show what they have to offer because I am also a NYSME member.
One of Heath’s questions at the “Layouts in Small Spaces” roundtable was surprising to me and I hadn’t really thought much of it before he asked the question.
“Are there Places outside of your home that you can go to do some kit building?”
As soon as he said it my mind was racing to come up with an answer. I did choose to join a club for two reasons.
The first is because I don’t have room to run larger trains on my small switching layout. Having a place to run these larger trains is a real benefit to joining a club.
The second reason was that they had a real metal shop with a lathe, a mill and a spray booth. I have always wanted to build my own steam engine. I could not really have this equipment at home for both cost, noise and space.
When I was in high school, I was one of the first of my friends to get a driver’s license so I was asked for a lot of favors. I took a lot of advanced placement classes even though I ended up going to a school that these classes did not apply to. I went to art school. AP Civics was one of my classes. A friend had a late paper and had to deliver it to our teacher, so I drove him. We got to the teacher’s house and his wife answered, he was downstairs. So, we filed in and down. I turned the corner and there was our teacher wearing optivisors and soldering final details on a beautiful O scale steam engine. My friend dutifully handed in his late paper but I could not be more distracted. My teacher had a full metal shop in his basement with mills, lathes and spin casting equipment. I had no idea that you could do this as a hobby. Seeing my teacher like this opened my mind to the possibility of how big this hobby was. It was a formative moment, my teacher had no layout besides a test track but his hobby was model railroading.
At the time I was a model railroader with my HO scale 4 by 8 foot table with my teenage struggling to figure it out on my own. My family was accepting but not interested in joining or really helping me get to where I wanted to be. My hobby journey has had a lot of self-teaching but this idea that I eventually at some point want to make my own engine has stuck with me. It will happen, someday. I am working up to it. Building kits. Refurbishing damaged rolling stock. Scratch-building cars and so on.
I joined the New York Society of Model Engineers about 10 years ago. (Wow! I can’t believe it has been so long). The club I joined was determined by the ability to get there by public transportation, access to tools for model building as well as the fact that they had an operable layout in my chosen scale.
Friday April 5th, 2024
MTA vintage Subway Train Running
11 am Lo-V departure other train to follow shortly after.
For the price of normal subway fare the Lo-Vs and the “Train of Many Colors” vintage subway cars are running from Grand Central to Yankee Stadium for baseball opening day. The two trains will run on the Lexington Line and will not make stops from GCT to 161 Street
April 6th 2024
NYSME / METCA Swap Meet
Tables are $25 each
Swap Meet at St Joseph’s Church
The New York Society of Model Engineers HO and O scale layouts will be open and operating for this event. The show is near the Jane St stop on the 163 NJT bus from the Port Authority
April 13th 2024
April Manhattan Modelers Meeting
Noon @ NYSME building.
341 Hoboken Road Carlstadt NJ 07072
For those of us using public transit we are planning to meet at 10:50 at the
42 Street Port Authority Bus Terminal. There is a 163/164 bus leaving at 11:10, 11:30 and 11:50. The stop to get off is Jane Street. Tickets should be purchased before boarding the bus. I recommend a round trip-off peak. The NYSME building is one block north of the stop on Jane Street. Please contact me if you are planning to travel together so I know to expect you. Estepandyprojects@gmail.com I will bring snacks as usual. There is a good Diner about hundred yards from the NYSME if you want to go to eat after the meeting.
Thursday April 18th 2024
6PM New York Transit Museum
99 Schermerhorn Street Downtown Brooklyn
Cost $5 non-museum members
Presentation on prototype Sustainable Mass Transit by the Chief Environmental Engineer of the MTA Thomas Abdallah in recognition of Earth Day
April 26th through 28th 2024
2024 Island Ops is holding its 10th annual layout operations sessions at various layouts on Long Island and the surrounding area.
Thursday May 23rd 2024 6PM
New York Transit Museum
99 Schermerhorn Street Downtown Brooklyn
Presentation, 190 Years of the Long Island Railroad by Elizabeth Moore author of Change at Jamaica: 190 Years of the Long Island Railroad
$15 non-members / $10 members
May 31st -June 2nd 2024
New England/Northeast Railroad Prototype Modelers Meet
Springfield MA
August 10-11, 2024
Greenberg’s Great Train and Toy Show
Edison, NJ
New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center
November 23-24, 2024
Greenberg’s Great Train and Toy Show
Edison, NJ
New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center
We have setup a Manhattan Modelers Discord as a place to share projects & ideas, post events, ask and answer questions and make connections.
We have chosen Discord because it is organized around specific interests instead of providing a unified newsfeed. Discord is focused on real-time interactions between people, whereas other social media options function as internet message boards.
Discord also has a Zoom like video conferencing feature, but without the limits of the free Zoom.
Click on this link which will ask you to either create an account or login to your existing account.
Once you join, you will see the logo for the Manhattan Modelers "server" on the left and the various "channel" topics on listed to their right.
Please take a moment to introduce yourself in the #introduce-yourself channel
The Manhattan Modelers and NMRA are independent, non-profit organizations who have chosen to affilliate for the mutual benefit of our membership, and each is not responsible for the publications, actions or omissions of the other.
