How many of you belong to your railroad’s Railroad Historical Association/Society? Being a Northern Pacific modeler, I am a member of the Northern Pacific Railroad Historical Association (NPRHA). This association puts out a quarterly magazine which is full of history, photos and data on this Railroad and has a rather large portion devoted to N.P. Modelers. The NPRHA also has a calendar for the current year with wonderful photos. Best of all there is a website devoted to the N.P. and the NPRHA also sells a bunch of modeling items, such as N.P. structures, books, a color drift card set and other interesting stuff. It is worth while for you to check to see if your chosen railroad has an association you can join. Membership in the NPRHA is $25.00 per year and I feel worth every penny.
Being a member has lead me to my next project, which is a Northern Pacific Bay Window Caboose kit sold by the NPRHA. This is a laser cut wood kit and although I have just started it, I can see that it will build into as good a rendition of this caboose as any brass model (I know as I had one). This is not a “shake the box assembly” kit and I expect assembly to take 20-30 hours, every minute of which I will enjoy immensely! I may post a few photos as I go along.
Northern Pacific had quite a few of these cars built from older wood box cars. It’s my understanding that they were not very popular with the crews on the western end of the line; but, were well liked on the east end.
I recommend you check out your Historical Associations and consider becoming a member. You free lancers will have to start up your own H.A.s.
I’m a member of the New York Central System Historical Society and the Conrail Historical Society. I find the magazines to be of great interest to me and I have attended two of the NYCSHS annual meetings here in Indiana.
The NYCSHS has also created a modelers on-line magazine which is also of interest.
I used to have an interest in the Pennsy until I was informed that my being in Indiana didn’t count as having an interest in the Pennsy. Indiana just wasn’t a real part of the Pennsy.
I highly recommend them for anyone interested in the subject road or geographic area. They are an amazing source of information!
I’ve belonged to both the Illinois Central and Santa Fe organizations for over 25 years. They both are terrific groups, and put out a very nice quarterly mag., etc.
I also belong to the NYCSHS. Although I’ve only been able to go to one annual meeting here in Cleveland, I’ve enjoyed getting to talk to and know other NYC fans around the country; mostly through the Yahoo! online groups. I am pleased that the NYCSHS is making considerable strides to make prototype information more readily available - especially to the modeler.
My house is only about a 10 minute drive up the hill from Collinwood. The old 500-ton coaling tower still stands as a sentinel to the once great railroad that came through this area.
For many years I have been a member (contributing member) of the Chicago & North Western Historical Society. I do not attend each and every annual meet but do try to attend from time to time. They always do a good job of finding speakers, interesting tours, a dinner presenter, and local experts, and almost always publish articles in their magazine (North Western Lines) that coordinate with the meet. They also have one day meets in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Western Wisconsin. They have published invaluable information in books as well as in their quarterly magazine.
Over the years they have moved most of the model railroad articles away from the quarterly magazine to their online website, and thus those articles are available to everyone for free. There has been some first rate modeling information that anyone would benefit from. Just check out the modeling tab on their website (their photo archives are also very good).
From time to time I also purchase the magazines of the Soo Line and Milwaukee Road historical societies. They too put out excellent material. Because so much of my railfanning takes place in Illinois, and because a good buddy is a CB&Q fan, I also keep track of the Burlington Route Historical Society, as well as the publication of the Rock Island society that I see for sale at swap meets. I have also seen the Illinois Central and Erie magazines and they too are very nicely done. I received a calendar from the Northern Pacific group as a gift and enjoyed that as well.
One thing many of these societies have in common is that they know who the experts are and they have done quite a bit to improve the painting, lettering, and detailing standards for commercial model firms such as Athearn, as well as the custom decal makers. Before there were all these historical societies (which was also before the internet) you had to be the expert to know
I belong to the Atlantic Coastline/Seaboard Airline Railroads Historical Society. In fact I organize the Societys’ spring meeting which is always held here in Jacksonville FL. Its scheduled for February 15,16 2013, the same weekend as the big train show at the Convention Center.
Interesting that some folks have the same view I do about the value of R.R. Historical Societies/Associations. It also appears that our interest in a particular railroad is due to our close proximity to it; or, where it was. Where I live, as well as the N.P., I was exposed to the Great Northern, CB&Q, Milwaukee, Soo Line, DM&IR, C&NW. I grew up with the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern almost in my back yard. I’m unsure why I settled on the Northern Pacific, other then I love it’s stubby little cabooses with their tall cupolas!
Not to besmerch the other scales; but, I guess it would be a forgone conclusion that the historical societies/associations would focus on HO, as it is far and away the most popular scale. Funding for these types of projects would be at a premium for them, so picking the most likely scale to be successful with would make sense.!
I not only joined my favorite railroad’s historical society, I became the Pere Marquette Historical Society’s web guy, then its modeling editor, and when the Society’s editor abruptly quit, its newsletter editor.
I definitely see the value that a railroad historical society can provide, but the challenge of providing that value to a couple hundred members is now mine. It takes a lot of time and focus.
The PMHS used to sell custom-run cars, but a few things brought that to an end. One was our merchandise manager deciding that he needed to cut back on that work to devote time to other responsibilities in his life. Another was when our President, who had great contacts in the industry and a lot of time to work on projects, passed away in 2006.
The third thing that took our Society out of the model business was a book that a couple of the Society’s officers published, detailing the Pere Marquette’s freight cars. Not too long after that volume of photos and diagrams was published, manufacturers suddenly started releasing freight cars in Pere Marquette paint. At that point, there wasn’t as much need for us to release cars of our own.
There are a couple other challenges involved, but I’ll save those for a later post.
The only rolling stock that the NPRHA is involved in is the Bay Window Caboose I mentioned earlier and some cast resin box car ends that are specific to the N.P. The rest of the models are structure kits specific to N.P. Mostly the company store sells books.
What I see the modeling segment of the NPRHA involved in, is cooperation with the manufacturers on getting N.P. details correct. It also appears the only kits they consider producing are ones which are not commercially available.
NPRHA understands it’s better to not be in competition with manufacturers as that is not in our best interest.
There is a classic old NP wood caboose stuffed and mounted at the civic center in, of all places, Mendota IL. Mendota is on the former CB&Q and was also served by the Milwaukee Road and Illinois Central, now both torn up. I assume the BN donated the NP caboose when the town asked for something (there is also a railroad museum at the depot itself).
Unfortunately that old NP caboose has seen better days – perhaps because it needs a local champion and there migtt not be an NP fan in town. I wonder if the NP historical society is even aware of that particular preserved caboose.
Tom I’m sorry. I just saw your message. No the old steamer was moved from there over 20 years ago. Its in the parking lot of the convention center which used to be the train station. Sadly its exposed to the weather and is deteriorating badly.
I don’t have a railroad… Oh you mean a favorite railroad’s historical society. [:-^] Yes, I belong to:
the Santa Fe Railway Modeling & Historical Society,
the Northern Pacific Historical Association,
the Rio Grande Society of Modelers,
and ummmm
I used to belong to the GN Don’t remember why it dropped. Probably just forgot to pay dues some month.
If I had the money I would belong to several others. MP, RI, M&StL, etc.
My life would be a lot easier if I had “a” railroad to follow!! I belong to the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Burlington, New York Central, and Missabe Road Historical Societies. (I don’t belong to the Rock Island historical society, but subscribe to “Remember the Rock”. I also belong to the Lake Superior Transportation Museum, the Minnesota Transportation Museum, and am a life member of the Iron Range Historical Society. At one time I belonged to about a dozen hysterical socities but had to cut back.
I am a 22 year member of the New Haven Railroad Historical & Technical Association (NHRHTA), which was the very first Special Interest Group dedicated to just one railroad. The NHRHTA originally started in 1961 as the “New Haven MODEL Railroad” (sic) and was to be a clearing house of NH information between modelers. Within only a few newsletters, it was renamed to the New Haven Railroad Technical Information Group (NHRTIG).
During this time, the NHRTIG had managed to become known to the real NHRR’s PR Dept., and in exchange for handling all modeling and information questions from the general public, the NHRR PR Dept. would print all NHRTIG paperwork (newsletters, etc.) for free at NH headquarters in New Haven, CT. One of the early NHRTIG members had a mass mailing contract in Bridgeport, CT, so every edition of the Newsletter (or “Bulletin”) during this time was bundled, put on a Westbound caboose at New Haven, and then was kicked off onto the platform at Bridgeport. So not only was the association actually involved with the subject railroad, their newsletters were literally delivered by the subject’s freight trains. Can any other SIG claim that? [8D]
After the folding of the NHRR into PC in 1969, the NHRTIG became the New Haven Railroad Technical Information Association (NHRTIA), and shortly thereafter started publishing a bound magazine called the “Shoreliner”. In the late 1970’s, the historical aspect of the association’s focus was brought to the fore with another (and last…so far) name change to the current New Haven Railroad Historical & Technical Association (NHRHTA).
Meanwhile, the “Shoreliner” magazine has evolved into a full color publication with over 130 issues made. Just last year, the NHRHTA started a sister publication dedicated more towards modeling articles, called “The Speed Witch”, and it is also a full color bound maga
