Have you seen this thread? This is a remarkable HO display.
http://cs.trains.com/trc/f/1/t/225379.aspx
Link activated.
Very impressive. Lots of neat military modeling, too, as well as the ocassional subtle social commentary in some of the scenes. Well worth a visit.
Thanks for posting Garry.
Great photo’s.
I have in the past visited some East block MRR forums on the net. The reason being we had some East block Nannies that came to work for us and they all would tell me what a huge hobby MRR was and still is in thee East block countries.
Brent,
I suspect its not just Eastern Europe, but more generally. China has a huge following. The NMRA is coordinating some things with the Chinese model railroad association like standards, etc. It has 100,000+ members or about five times the size of the NMRA.
Then there’s this example from Cuba.
I thought it looked like S American Flyer stuff, maybe O because the track sorta looks like three-rail, but maybe someone else can tell us more? The adult presence here at the Young Pioneers layout (or so I’m told is what it is) seems rather identifiable.[:)]
That’s an interesting photo Mike.
Another thing about the East Block modelers is their scratch building ability. Do to their obvious restrictions to obtain anything that would be RTR, just about everything they had was scratch built. I have written before about my friend Hank who escaped from Estonia. He said even the wheels on their scratch built rolling stock would be turned from wood. It kind of brings the meaning of scratch building to a whole new level doesn’t it.
I am happy for our fellow modelers who once did so long without the things we just took for granted in the West. They now have the same access to buy and produce. I wish a few of them would start to drop in on this forum. It would be educational
“Eastern Block” modelers had access to some commerical model trains (PIKO) manufactured East Germany. They only existed because model trains were made in the area from before WW2.
February 1991 Model Railroader page 124 has an article “Model Railroading Soviet Style” There were a few toy/model trains made in the USSR, but not many.
November 2005 Model Railroader article “Modeling a Secret Prototype” is about Chris White’s model railroad represting a Soviet railline. Chris is the proprieter of Red Star Railways http://www.redstarrailways.com/ which makes and sells models of Russian prototypes.
The June 2005 Model Railroading has an article “Havana Diorama Captures Cuban Steam of Bygone Era” It uses modified LGB equipment, and has excellent scratch built building depicting the sugar cane industry. It was built for the “State” by professional model builders. The article can be read on-line at http://www.trainlife.com/
The English/Russia web site http://englishrussia.com/ has photo features on other model railroads, on prototype railroads and on Railway museums in eastern Europe and Russia. By the way it is not a Russian web site. Its servers are located in Los Angeles. Its articles are mainly edited reposts from eastern European sites. Where a link is given to an origional site, it is often worthwhile to go to them for more information (text and sometimes photos), however a language translator ap i
Ya, my friend Hank told me what they could buy would run like crap. The more talented among them would essentially rebuild them right out of the box. They also made their own transformers which I suppose could be done without too much trouble.
Has anyone ever oredered something at redstarrailways.com???
In the last 4 years I wrote several emails to them because I wanted to order some of their passenger cars, but I NEVER EVER received any answer yet.
Anyone out there with the same experience?
De Luxe,
If that’s the response and there’s no other contact info, it may be they’re joined the fallen flags…
Speaking of the variable quality of life “behind the iron curtain” there was one interesting aspect - relatively large scale – ok, it’s full scale narrowgauge [:D] – railway modeling as part of various youth organizations. There were a number in the USSR:
http://railways.id.ru/towns/kratovo/index-eng.html
The term “pioneer railways” is a bit conusing in translation. Some were for the youth organization called the Young Pioneers, as above. But the term apparently also included forest railways and other light lines of less than a meter in gauge. Many seem to have been preserved for historical purposes, a form of “modeling” quite common in the West.
http://home.zonnet.nl/p.engelbert/RUS-PIO.html
The Hungarians got into the act with youth railways also:
http://disappearingbudapest.blogspot.com/2008/11/pioneers-and-childrens-railway.html
Don’t know what the problem is. His web page has been updated this month. Maybe your emails didn’t go through. His contact info includes snailmail and phone number and fax number. Have you tried them?
I sent them messages from 3 different email adresses already but never received an answer. Didn´t do a call yet because I don´t wanna spend money on calling when it´s not absolutely necessary.
I have a nice russian steam locomotive and would love to have those typical russian cars attached to it. And especially after I crossed whole Russia from Vladivostok to Moscow on the Transsiberian Railway in the middle of the Russian winter in January this year (which was fantastic trip by the way!), I´m more than ever in the mood to have a russian passenger train in H0 scale.