I may be crfiticised for not restricting this posting to the Model Railoader Forum, but I think it should be of general railfan interest:
The Largest Model Railroad in Israel. Dave Klepper, 8 August 2013
When I was growing up in New York City, on the West Side of Manhattan, I would visit the large club model railroads in the vicinity, initially with one of my parents, and then by myself. One was the layout of the New York Society of Model Engineers, first in a basement on either 43rd or 44th Street near 6th Avenue,(Avenue of the Americas), and then on the second floor of the Lackawanna’s Hoboken Terminal. The other was located in the old and beautiful stone NYNH&H Pelham Manor Station, reached by the Third Avenue Transit “L” bus replacing the famous Toonerville, after arriving by New Haven mu train from Grand Central at the Pelham Station, or going via subway to 241st Street, White Plains Ave. (inexplicably called White Plains Road by the IRT), and the “A” New Rochelle – Subway Third Avenue Transit System streetcar (Home-made 1936 lightweight, 301-400 series, my position often standing left of the motorman). Usually the subway-and-streetcar trip was for going and the railroad for the return, the latter with a front-platform ride if the engineer was friendly.
Both layouts were huge and O gauge. If I remember correctly, both used outside third rails, with the curious sight of model steam locomotives with third rail shows. Although OO and HO models of the period had insulated wheels and two-rail power pickup, this innovation had not made it generally to the O-gauge models. But otherwise, both layouts were wonderful in details, with excellent scenery, buildings, fine scale model trains looking very prototype with locomotives, mostly steam, pulling appropriate consists. If I