Erie and DL&W
Wreck Trains by Ron Dukarm Available through the
Erie Lackawanna Historical Society
This 100 page, five chapter spiral bound book includes 153 photos of Lackawanna, Erie, and EL wreck cranes and their associated equipment. Most of these photographs are being published for the first time. The book also includes 36 drawings and equipment charts. Ron thoroughly covers the complete roster of wrecking cranes, wreck trains, and wrecking procedures of all three railroads. Ron also provides the first ever explanation of Erie's mysterious Maintenance Of Way numbering system.
Member price plus $8.95 s&h
www.erielackhs.org $1696
US Funds Only Visit us online at Dealer Inquiries Welcome
Order from: ELHS, Department RMC Jay Held, 10-10 ELLIS AVE, FAIR LAWN, N.J. 07410 No phone calls will be accepted For information send SASE
N.J., PA & Ohio res. add sales tax. Outside US extra s&h.
ELHS membership at $35 per membership cycle. Cycle includes four issues of our magazine “The Diamond” and four newsletters with modeling
information. Separate check please. Send to: ELHS c/o Randy Dettmer, 290 W. Prospect St., Hudson, OH 44236
92 MAY 2012
Non-member price $1995
yet their work does not show it. Improving one’s work takes an invest- ment and desire. It all costs money, and in these economic times we are even tighter with our hard-earned dollars. However, for me the projects that I have worked on and then tossed years later do not represent a waste of money. I look at them in terms of entertainment value. An average resin kit costs about $40.00 and can take six to eight hours to complete. That translates into about $6.00 an hour, or entertainment value, for the construction, and untold hours of pleasure viewing and operating it on the layout. How does that compare to $15.00-$20.00 for a movie, or $50.00- $80.00 for a concert or theater tickets? How far can this attitude go? A few years ago I tore down the layout I had been working on for seven years and started on whole different project. I had been building a layout based upon Palmerston, Ontario. All the benchwork was built, ninety percent of the track was in, most of the steam lo- comotives had been acquired, and most of the rolling stock was in the house. But, something wasn’t right. Every time I went into the layout room I got cranky. There was something amiss, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then, on the way home from one of the Prototype Modelers Seminars at Naperville, Illinois, I had the opportu- nity to visit Bill Darnaby’s Maumee Route. What I saw there completely re- set my thinking about what a layout can and or should be. The long runs of mainline on very narrow benchwork really made the trains the stars of the show. The almost ten scale miles of track really gave the sense of a work- ing railroad. Most importantly, it was a comfortable layout to view, and, I bet, to operate.
The drive home consisted of my re- thinking everything I had been doing to date and what I could do to fulfill my desires. After a few weeks looking around and some good fortune with re- search data, I hit upon a new prototype to model, a portion of the Wabash oper-
ation in Ontario. Most of the CN brass was quickly sold, along with a sizeable percentage of the rolling stock. Some of the structures went to good homes with my friends. I acquired the needed Wabash engines and began to build a new fleet of rolling stock.
It was when I started to dismantle the old layout that I discovered the mis- take I had made with the Palmerston layout. Actually, it was a series of mis- takes. For one, I had neglected to follow my own instincts about access. There were too many points on the layout that were hard to reach. The design required a large wye in the middle of the base- ment, which effectively cut the room in half and made getting from one end to the other a chore. Too many things had to be in place and working properly be- fore the layout could be run. The list can go on, but I think you get the point. It was, all in all, too much layout for one man with my work schedule. The new layout has progressed well. Do I consider the time and effort on Palmerston to have been a waste? Not at all. I learned a lot from the exercise and came up with a new list of what to do, what not to do, and what I want from a layout now. (Those items do change, you know.) I have had an opportunity to work with new products that have re- cently come on the market, particularly the hand laying track systems from Fast Tracks. I had a good time building the old layout and consider every dollar put in to it a worthwhile investment. The bottom line is to not be afraid of trying something new. You may sur- prise yourself, and at worst you will learn something and gain new skills.–PIERRE OLIVER
2012 St. Louis RPM meet
The sixth annual St. Louis RPM meet will be on Friday July 27 and Saturday, July 28, at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois. There will be models (1,000?) on display, clin- ics, and selected vendors. This is a dozen miles east of St. Louis off I-55/70. E-mail
Golden1014@yahoo.com for info.
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