Former MR Editor Andy Sperandeo passed away

[Bob Keller]

From the Model Railroader Facebook page:

"With a heavy heart, I’m sad to report that Andy Sperandeo, who has been a part of our lives at Model Railroader magazine for more than 30 years, has died.

As some of you know, Andy had been fighting cancer and other ailments, and the combination finally caught up with him earlier today.
Andy started work at Model Railroader in 1979, becoming editor in 1993. In time he became executive editor and upon retirement a few years ago became a contributing editor. Readers today are most familiar with Andy through his monthly The Operators column. He has also edited our Great Model Railroads annual since its inception.
Information on services or memorials remains pending at this time.

Neil Besougloff
editor

[cnw1995]

Oh no, rest in peace Andy. My condolences to his family. His enthusiam, MR articles, and editorials always fueled my interest in the hobby. I remember corresponding with him about his experience with the Delta Lines!

[Penny Trains]

For the past 2 days I've been thumbing through old issues of CTT for inspiration.  Just about an hour ago, I got to Dick Christianson's tribute to John Grams.  An issue or three ahead of re-reading that article (issues not in chronological order) I had re-read one of John's articles, the one about adding whimsy to the layout that the 2 of them built together.  (The "This sign has sharp edges..." bit gets me every time.)  Seeing pictures of John, Ward Kimball and far too many others not with us and seeing things I've forgotten about got me to read the names, the "By-Lines" and pay attention more and more to what I was seeing.

I started thinking about the who's behind the what's I was reading about as I skipped around through bits and pieces of CTT history.  Andy was one of the who's I began wondering about.  It's the same old story, we all wonder "what's he up to these days?"  But I started to understand that a lot of what I know about trains has to be attributed to people I never even consciously realized were teaching me things.  It's easy to think of a magazine in the same way you would a newspaper or even a news broadcast.  "These are the facts and that's the name of the person who's telling me those facts."

But I've come to recognize that it's just not that simple.

So I'd like to stop for a moment and say thank you.  Thank you to everyone in the greater railroading hobbies universe.  Thank you Andy for teaching me things in a way that didn't even let me realize you were teaching me something.  To all of the staff of CTT who do the same thing every day and deliver it to us in print 9 times a year.  To all the layout builders who write stories and share them with us all.  To the annonymous purchaser who right now, somewhere in the world is buying something railroad related at a local hobbyshop.  To all of you I say THANK YOU. Thank you for keeping the community growing.

Today a friend has gone on ahead.

[sir james I]

I didn't know Andy but remember his work.

Condonences to his family and many friends.

[cheapclassics]

Good evening all,

Becky, you not only have a way with ideas and crafts for the trains, but a remarkable gift for words as well.  My condolences as well on Andy's passing as I enjoyed what he wrote for MR.  

Mike C. from Indiana