SABOTAGE OF NYSME LAYOUT

[OT Dean]

I recently bought the back issues of Railroad Model Craftsman magazines containing articles by the late, great Paul E. Larson.  He had a huge file of professional quality photos and discussed his insights into real railroading as applied to our model railroads.  However, in the July, 1967, issue of RMC I found an article by the late Hal Cartens, editor and publisher, with the headline "Sabotage Hits NYSME Layout."  (Strangely, I'd had no idea about this until I built a library of RMC some years ago, as I'd seen no reference to the incident in Model Railroader at the time.)

 

The New York Society of Model Engineers had impressive model railroads in both HO and 17/64" O in their headquarters in the former waiting room of theLackawanna Railroad’s disused Passenger Terminal in Hoboken, NJ.  On the night of April 27, 1967, a vandal or vandals broke into the building and sabotaged the O scale model railroad.  The HO railroad and the extensive archives weren’t touched.  This person singled out the O scale layout, destroying the catenary system, which had taken five years to complete, plus extensive special trackwork of crossings, turnouts, and dozens of double slip-switches.  Strangely, no rolling stock was touched.

 

Is there anyone in the group who can shed any light on whether or not the perpetrator was ever caught?  This is the worst case of vandalism against a model railroad I’ve ever heard of, done by a truly sick individual.  (PS, I think these days this might be hinted at as a Hate Crime due to the specific targeting for the damage.)

 

Deano

[gmpullman]

Deja vu?

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/269560.aspx

 

 

Cheers, Ed

[marksrailroad]

All I have to compare this to is an incident involving the model railroading club layout in a park in Bryan Texas back in the early 1980s when several teenagers broke into the building and totally destroyed both the layout and every single engine and piece of rolling stock just for the pure meanness of it. They never did catch the kids that did it but did have suspects. I recall how torn up the members were about their losses. Sad...