The 7 Wonders of the Modelrailroading World?


You hit two of my favorites here. When I was stationed at Mare Island in the late 60's for instructor duty in the Navy, I had the opportunity to have attended a number of operating sessions on John Allens Gorre and Daphetid. What an experience that was. I also was able to visit Geroge Sellios Franklin & South Manchester when he only had the first part of the railroad built. One amazing layout. I hopefully if I get into New England, I would really love to see what he has done since my first visit. I keep close watch on it on the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0vY2-EBuZE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3SbNMvoyaE

It is amazing at how much detail George has managed to get into the layout. Probably one of my top favorites.
 
Milwaukee Road 113 said:
What would you say they are (or was)?
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Well, I am going to be much more specific than just listing someone's or some entity's entire model railroad. These will take some time to write, so it might be a week or two for me to get them posted. Plus I'm not going to put them in order until I get them all up because I am not certain how I will rank them with the things the other folks post. Could be a very wonderful thread.

A Wonder of the Model Railroading World is:

Gorre & Daphetid locomotive #13. For those who don't know #13 wasn't built by Alco, Baldwin, or Lima but rather the toy company called Marx. It just happened to be HO scale as it was a plastic stegosaurus named Emma. John properly numbered it according to the Gorre and Daphetid standards and it was weathered just right. Most of its service life was spent performing switching duties both on and off track around the roundhouse in the town of Gorre. The problem with this locomotive was it required a special fueling station and ash pit which were unique from other locomotives.

The wonder is how John Allen incorporated it and many other things into his fantasy world without distracting from the overall realistic look and operation of the railroad. I don't know if he is the first to put a dinosaur on a layout, but he was certainly the first where it didn't look like a toy plastic dinosaur stuck onto a toy train set. I have always (since I was in 7th grade and realized all these photos I saw were from the same model RR) wondered how one person was able to be a fantastic photographer, model railroad builder & operator, and still have the element of creativity and whimsy to create these special little scenes all over his layout. This is more true considering the state of the hobby technology at the time. Today everyone stands on the shoulders of this little stegosaur when we go about planning layout design elements (LDEs). Today there are nine dinosaurs on the OC&E museum layout*. I am certain all the visitors do some wondering every time they find one lurking behind a tree, building, or under a trestle. I will always have at least one on any layout I do. A true wonder of the longevity of a tradition started all those years ago with a simple toy plastic dinosaur.

* Yes there is a dinosaur in this scene, unfortunately it cannot be seen it in the photo because of the camera angle.
 
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I would have to add Miniatur Wunderland and Northlandz to that list.

Some honorable mentions would be Entertrainment Junction, San Diego Model Railway Museum, and the layout at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. I would have to put these three on my list because they are some of the best I have seen, but there may be better out there. To me, nothing comes close to Miniatur Wunderland, the photos and video do not do it justice.
 
John Allen was also quite the practical joker during operating sessions. He would play tricks with magnets by hiding them in freight cars making it impossible to couple up with or by putting weights into freight cars and assigning you a locomotive that he knew didn't have a chance of moving that train and would then start barking at you because you were holding everything up. You always knew that he would probably do something, but the question was who and where. These operating sessions were always fun and then after the operating session he would bring out his time saver switching module.

Here's the track plan.

Track_Plan_G&D.jpg

The layout didn't actually occupy a large space, but by creative use of space and scenery, it seemed large.
 
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Toot brought up another outstanding model railroad that I have seen numerous photos and videos of, The Mississippi Alabama and Gulf RR. Here's a link to it. Another amazing model railroad.

http://www.magnoliaroute.com/

There are also some fantastic club layouts that could be on the list. I enjoy watching cab ride videos on YouTube and I have reen some really outstanding work.

Vic Smith also has a really outstandingly detailed layout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A2h3jZhxiA
 
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Milwaukee Road 113 said:
What would you say they are (or was)?
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A Wonder of the Model Railroading World is:

The 1984 Atlas RS-3. This locomotive was the first HO scale model to come from the factory with a precision drive. Before this time, in order to get an extremely smooth running model one had to spend a fortune in both time and money fixing up one of the vendor's offerings. Can motor, precision universal joints, NWSL gear sets, extra electrical pick ups, one easily doubled the original price of the model. It was a manufacturing risk and marketing experiment for Atlas to see if the modeling community would really pay almost twice as much for a loco to have all that work done at the factory rather than doing it themselves. And it had scale width hoods to boot!

It is a wonder because it was a great idea, a great model and a huge hit. I, even cheapskate I, dealt out full list price of approximately $40 for a NP painted unit. I was in wonder the first time I put it on the rails and it glided silently away. Forward and backward I ran it again and again, noting the low throttle setting on which it would start moving. I marveled a the throttle response a low speed. I was in wonder of how many cars it was able to pull up a 3% grade. When I went to install a decoder I discovered the drive train was a wonder as it pulled less than 1/2 an amp and I didn't need to use monster sized power transistors for it.

On a much larger scope it was a wonder in that it set a new bar of what an HO scale locomotive could perform like. It is the reason other vendors started improving their product offerings. The locomotive market was never the same after that. Stewart, Intermountain, Athearn Genesis, and Kato HO are all indirect reactions to this model. Even improvements in the Proto-2000 drive line and Athearn RTR are direct results of this loco. It is the one HO diesel that changed the model railroad world.
 
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Is that when the Atlas Alco RS-3 came out. My God, have I been working in my layout that long ????? I was about a year into my current layout when they came on the market.

I had custom painted a couple of GP-7s for my layout when the RS-3 first came out. I had always liked the looks of them and order one and was amazed at how well it ran and ended up building a fleet of Atlas Alcos. To this day they are all still in service on my layout and still running as smooth as the day they were new.

0020.jpg

Geeze, time sure flies by.
 
Milwaukee Road 113 said:
What would you say they are (or was)?
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A wonder of the Model Railroading World:

The Pittman DC-60 motor. The Pittman was not the first small motor to be used in model trains. It was not the first DC motor. Those had been around since the 20s. Indeed there was a history of small motors behind it including the original very successful "motor for HO scale" (a story in itself). A case of building on the past, this post war wonder brought it all into a single package. It had five poles, used 12V, Alnico magnets, would run at 10,000 rpm, and was relatively inexpensive. Before this motor HO scale had been a 6 volt show. The 12 volts gave much more power more torque and allowed locos to pull longer trains. Because of the RPM it could be geared at a greater ratio allowing modelers to choose the exact ratio they wanted, while also allowing much more smooth power to be applied to the wheels. The five poles (instead of four) eliminated the stall factor where the windings would get magnetically "stuck" between the permanent magnets and not rotate. It was simultaneously small, powerful, trouble free, and quiet compared to contemporary motors. It was eventually used by Varney, Lindsey, Hobby Town of Boston, English Model Works, Mantua (hence Tyco), Bowser, MDC (Roundhouse), and probably more.

The DC-60 was the mainstay for HO models throughout the late 1940s, 1950s, and waning into the 1980s due to the coming of the can and coreless motors. Despite all the inroads of can motors, the DC-71 variation is still in production today 70 years later. This post war wonder brought HO scale out of the novelty category and moved HO into the main stream. It paved the road for N-scale and smaller units. So when one gets to wondering why HO became so popular, they can look to 1945 and this mini-motor the Pittman DC-60.
 
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Since the "7 Wonders of the World" include some structures that are no longer in existence, I will add in RAILROADS ON PARADE by Dunham Studios that was in Pottersville, NY. Sadly they closed down last year due to finances and were forced to sell off most of the collection of multiple layouts covering many areas, seasons, scales and events.

Thanks to the wonderful internet, some of it can still live on in Memory, though...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Ce5OOeGHY

1407450406550
 
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Milwaukee Road 113 said:
What would you say they are (or was)?
Click to expand...
A wonder of the Model Railroading World is:

The 1948 Lionel Santa Fe F3. Today it seems strange that a diesel locomotive, especially one as ubiquitous as an EMD F, could ever be the hottest selling model train locomotive. In fact it is a wonder that it was Lionel's over all top selling locomotives of their entire company history. After the war people were tired of army drab and all the restrictions on travel and the production of luxury items of which the very expensive Lionel trains were considered. At the time the prototype F3 was the most modern and exciting thing for one to see on the rails. No one wanted to see the dirty old steam locomotives that reminded them of the war time grind, so to be able to get a model of one was a true wonder.

The F3 was much easier to manufacture than their prior steam locomotives. This allowed the public to get a "train set" for much less than their fathers were before the war, while at the same time increasing the margin of profit-per-unit to the company. The brightly colored Santa Fe red war bonnet attracted many a post war boy back to the hobby of model railroading.

Even the Santa Fe paint scheme was a wonder in that the Lionel company approached the Atchison road about the paint scheme. The Santa Fe enthusiastically not only gave permission to use the scheme but supplied official painting diagrams and paid for the art work and some of the tooling. A Santa Fe executive is rumored to say that, "I do not know where or how else we could get so much publicity for so little a cost." While Lionel also approached the New York Central and also got some funding from them, the grey lightening scheme locos did not come anywhere close to the Santa Fe in number of sales. It is said a store window with the Santa Fe unit running on display would bring in twice as many customers as any other train.

The Santa Fe F3 was offered in the catalog until 1966 for an amazing 19 years. It was retired at about the same time as the prototype units were being relegated to 2nd class duty and the main lines were being taken over by the GP35s and SDs. This locomotive brought many father & son teams into the hobby, whether they stayed with Lionel and O-gauge or not.
 
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John Allen's work certainly belongs on any such list. I would add the Cat Mountain and Santa Fe. Not because it was groundbreaking, but because it's one of my favorites. :)
 
Thank You for the education on the finer points of this fine pastime! Enjoying your posts immensely! Good stuff!
 
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