History of Model Railroading Research Paper (Senior Project)

[Anonymous]

Dear Reader,

The History of Model Railroading is the topic I am researching for my Senior Project's research paper. What are some good resources that I can look at (Books, Webpages, etc)? I am lost. I found a few books, but they don't have much in them. And search engines haven't been much help either. Can some share some information or place they know of that I may look? Thank you.

[CNJ831]

I would suggest the book 150 Years of Train Models by Hal Carstens (1999), Carstens Publishing Inc. (see their website for address and prices).

Any websites addressing this subject that I've ever seen are far too brief and superficial to be of much use in preparing a really serious paper.

CNJ831

[DigitalGriffin]

I just picked up "Scale Modeling and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad". You should be able to get it online from the B&O train museum shop for ~$20.00. It's a nice book that has several historical timelines and information about displays that were set up.

~Don

[mersenne6]

Hertz - Riding the Tinplate Rails and Collecting Toy Trains have some information on early model railroading.

Check back issues of Model Railroader for articles by authors Frank Taylor, Linn Wescott, Frank Ellison, John Allen, and John Armstrong. Sometime in the 1930's Model Railroader had a feature article on "the early days of model railroading".

Ellison wrote a series of articles on the presentation of the model railroad - The Art of Model Railroading which many consider to be one of the finest discussions of various aspects of the hobby. Wescott wrote a very fine book on John Allen and his railroad which certainly gives the reader a sense of the evolving history of the G&D as well as the hobby itself.

Toy Trains - A History by Carlson is a pretty good summary of the growth of the toy train and it illustrates the connection between the toy and model segments.

If you have the resources a sample reading of articles from Model Railroader from each decade (1930's to the present) will certainly give you a sense of the evolving focus of the hobby. The early articles pretty much focus on the issues of just getting something built and running whereas later articles focused on mixing readymade and scratchbuilt items and dealing with issues of operational reliability. You can race the changing focus of the philosophy of layout constuction as well as the attitudes towards operation.

[IRONROOSTER]

You could also look at the old issues of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman.

Enjoy
Paul

[SilverSpike]

My son had a group social studies project last month and I gave him the idea of the same topic line, 'History of Railroading in Louisiana'. He loved the idea, but his study group decided to do the FBI as a topic. Anyway, here are a list of web sites that I have found during my preliminary RR history searches:

National Railway Historical Society: http://www.nrhs.com/
NRHS Research Library: http://www.nrhs.com/library.htm
Fallen Flags and Other Railroad Photos: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/
Sante Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society: http://www.atsfrr.com/index.shtml

Just a few to get you started!

- Ryan

[mersenne6]

Model Railroading history is going to take quite a bit of digging and you will probably have to depend quite a bit on the model railroad magazines to build an understanding of the evolution of the hobby. I took some more time this evening to try to develop a few more leads for you.

1. Hertz - Riding the Tinplate Rails - Chapter 6 America Oldest Model Railroad
2. Hertz - Collecting Toy Trains - Chapter 13 - Historical summary of the evolution of the toy/model railroad. A lot of this can also be found in the Carlson book I mentioned earlier.
3. The Art of Model Railroading - Ellison - July 1976 Model Railroader
4. " " " " " " - 1944 Model Railroader pp. 108, 156, 208, 255, 304, 342

5. The Art of Scratchbuilding - Model Railroader May 1960

5a. The Case for Styrene - Armitage - Model Railroader Nov & Dec 1959

6. History of Tinplate Railroading Model Railroader 1935 pp. 236

As mentioned before, you can go off in any number of directions - evolution of layout building, operation, model construction etc. In addition to the venues in the first post you could also look at
1. Evolution of use of materials for model building - origin of the brass engine, acceptance of use of plastic (styrene) as a medium in place of wood.
2. Evolution of control - rheostats and track blocks , the 1946-1950 Lionel Electronic set and the beginnings of independent train control without the use of blocks , Astrac in the 1960's, command and control via computers today.

I hope you have some time to spend because this is going to take some time. On the other hand you have the potential for a very interesting paper.

[jrbarney]

Trainsju4tom,
Welcome to the forum !
Don't know where you live, but you might consider a field trip to Chattanooga, TN, to visit the Howell Day Museum at NMRA Headquarters:
http://www.nmra.org/howellday/
I suggest you send an Email first to check operating hours, since the Web page hasn't been revised recently. Mr. Brent Lambert, Director of the NMRA's Kalmbach Memorial Library:
http://www.nmra.org/library/
might also be able to suggest sources in addition to the good suggestions made by other responders.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[cwclark]

the first model railroading actually took place during the antibellum (pre - civil war period) with toy wooden trains attached to a string that were pulled around by young children..it soon evolved into hand pushed tinplate trains on tinplate track which then evolved into wind up clockwork tinplate trains...electric trains didn't come out until the early 20th century but to say model railroading started at such and such year is not an accurate date...i wish i had a list of books for you with this information but they probably were sold in a garage sale I had a few years back..sorry...good luck on your project...Chuck

[Anonymous]

Your first action should be to define what you mean by "model" railroading. Toy trains have been around essentially for as long as trains have been around (as mentioned by Chuck's post above). To me, the difference between toy trains and model railroading is that the miniature train be a scale model. Doesn't need to be entirely accurate (even today, very few miniature trains are 100% accurate), but DOES need to be a recognizable effort to create a model of a prototype at a specific scale. Toy trains have a much longer and arguably richer - certainly harder to docuemnt - history than model railroading, which if you accept my definition goes back to perhaps the 1930s.

[randybc2003]

Try checking out the Smithsonian & U.S. Pattent office. I'm sure they may have some kinds of models, even if they are just "demonstrators".
Randy