I'm afraid I come bearing sad news. According to several model railroad Facebook pages, Allen McClelland of Virginian & Ohio fame has suffered a massive stroke. I don't have much else in the way of details.
I've been a huge admirer of Allen and his layout. I hope he makes a speedy recovery.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
Thanks for passing on the word, GP9.
A sad reality of our gathering years.
My condolences and wish his family well.
It is not often that a model railroader earns a page in Wikipedia!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginian_and_Ohio
Regards, Ed
Tony Koester confirmed last night on the groups.io Proto-Layouts list that Allen passed yesterday afternoon.
The man was a legend and will be sorely missed.
In the early 1970s, Allen pioneered and popularized a number of things that, through his example, have come to be considered common tenets of model railroad and operations design. A few of these are:
I first met him about 25 years ago when he agreed to give a clinic at an NMRA convention I chaired. He was always very approachable. When people would seek him out to speak with him at conventions or operations weekends, he would make time to talk with them. While he had a group of friends pretty much anywhere he went, he was not clique-ish- I remember at least twice that some friends and I were having breakfast at an event and, to our pleaant surprise, he slid into an empty seat to join our meal and our conversation.
He was truly one of the nicest people I've met in this hobby, or anywhere else for that matter.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
That is very sad news. First Dick Elwell and now Allen McClelland. If there's a model railroading Heaven, then you know they've got a H--- of a layout!
Sad to hear. He was a great inspiration to all modelers. Got to meet him a couple of times at the Dayton train show. Very nice man. He had been selling some of the equipment from the first v&o but all of that sold out the day before. Condolences and prayers for his family.
Jim
I read it last night on the Modern Freight Car List and expected it to be on all the forums the next day. When I read it, it was reported massive stroke and brain dead but today listed as passed away.
McClelland has been a figure in the Model Railroad magazines I read in the 70's and 80's. On the V&O wiki page it was listed that he had moved into a retirement home. We have been losing a lot of the icon's of the hobby in recent years.
Sorry to read of it.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Sad news indeed.
The VIRGINIAN AND OHIO will live on for as long as I am running trains.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
The man was an inspiration.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Yes indeed, very sad news.
Saw the V&O the first time where else? None other than the pages of MR. Instant hit! Fleet operations, loads of green - bushlike scenery, strings of cars not resembling peddlers. One of those railroads that kinda had everything i liked to see.
Never met Allen, never chatted, emailed or likewise. But i can feel the void left in his abscence. From my view outside looking in, he was one heck of a Railfan.
My sincerest condolences to all his family.... and friends.
Respectfully,
PM Railfan
It is always sad to hear the passing of a well known (and respected) modeller.
Not knowing him, but reading about him, I like his idea of 'beyond the basement' a theme I endorse.
Condolences to his family and friends.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
While I never got the opportunity to meet Allen, he and his V&O have been a part of my love of trains and model railroading ever since I first started reading Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman. Back in those days, I saw the V&O as a cool layout that I loved seeing pictures of. About 20-25 years ago, I began focusing my modeling more on realistic operations and choosing a location for my layout. While there have been several layouts that have had an influence on my modeling, Allen and the V&O have been the main influence for me. In more recent years, the V&O as well as the Allegheny Midland and MR&T have found their ways onto my layout, finding a couple V&O kits on Ebay, the V&O and AM boxcars from Fox River Models, MR&T cars from Kalmbach, and more recently V&O and AM Accurail kits through Patrick Harris' Three Notch Rail Freelance Trains group on Facebook. The number of V&O cars on my layout more than outnumber the AM and MR&T cars combined. While Allen may be gone, he and the V&O will live on through my layout.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
My first ever issues of model railroader featured Allan's railroad and it has always been my favourite. I still have that issue so might go look at it. RIP
Sad news! I've never met him but I've read a great many of his articles over the years and admired his layout. My condolences to his family and friends.
Quick tribute video I made on Sunday afternoon.
The &O does love on as his son is doing a division and two of his long time operators are doing divisions. The legacy continues on. I have been wondering we will ever see those layouts
shane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
I've always admired his accomplishments with the V&O, and the contributions he made to model railroading. I just started reading his book "The V&O Story - How the V&O was build: How it is Operated" in September!
R.I.P Allen McClelland
Although, I did not know him, he looks familiar and would not be surprised if I have a MR issue that featured him and his layout.
I consider Allen, and in reality all of you model railroaders of every scale, including all magazine staffs and editors, Model Train Store owners etc., to be the REAL HEROS of this world.
As my wife always says "Model Railroading is a very Nice hobby". In fact, it is my opinion if more people enjoyed model trains as a hobby, this world would be a better place. As opposed to one where people indulge in abusive drug and alcohol use as their prime means of entertainment.
Again...I salute and am greatful for Allen and all of you heros involved with Model Trains.
Allen McClelland had the courage to do what most of us in our senior years are not doing. That is he and his wife decided to downsize, so the first version of the V&O was ended and a smaller one built. Then they decided that they really needed to move into senior or assisted living and that version too was ended. A friend of his had Allen built a portion of the V&O on his layout where they interchanged so Allen was able to keep his hand in the game until the end.
The key thing is that as heartbreaking as this is for his family and friends (and admirers) Allen made choices that avoided burdening his wife. I can tell you that many model railroader widows end up cursing the layout they are left with (and the husband who built it) because it makes the house unsalable until it is removed.
As in so many aspects of his modeling and his writing, Allen had the gift of being able to look ahead and plan for what was coming.
I met him twice, very casually and can tell you that he must have been extraordinarily patient and kind because he was surrounded by modelers who all wanted his attention and alas some of them could be real jerks about it.
Dave Nelson
Definitely sad to see a trailblazer like him gone. Makes me look forward to Tony Koester's new book on the V&O all the more.
Andy
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Milwaukee native modeling the Milwaukee Road in 1950's Milwaukee.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/196857529@N03/
dknelson Allen McClelland had the courage to do what most of us in our senior years are not doing. That is he and his wife decided to downsize, so the first version of the V&O was ended and a smaller one built. Then they decided that they really needed to move into senior or assisted living and that version too was ended. A friend of his had Allen built a portion of the V&O on his layout where they interchanged so Allen was able to keep his hand in the game until the end. The key thing is that as heartbreaking as this is for his family and friends (and admirers) Allen made choices that avoided burdening his wife. I can tell you that many model railroader widows end up cursing the layout they are left with (and the husband who built it) because it makes the house unsalable until it is removed. As in so many aspects of his modeling and his writing, Allen had the gift of being able to look ahead and plan for what was coming. I met him twice, very casually and can tell you that he must have been extraordinarily patient and kind because he was surrounded by modelers who all wanted his attention and alas some of them could be real jerks about it. Dave Nelson
Several years ago he was selling a bunch of equipment at the Dayton train but I can not remember if it was when they downsized from the first layout or the second time when layout 2 was dismantled. I got to meet him but all the V&O labeled stuff was gone early on the first day. He had just a few things left that were other railroads when I was there.
I learned of Allen's passing while I was in the hospital recovering from open heart surgery. I met Allen in the mid 60s. While I never had the honor of operating on the V&O, I visited the layout many times over the years. An innovator and a true gentleman, he will be missed. RIP Allen.
GP-9_Man11786 I'm afraid I come bearing sad news. According to several model railroad Facebook pages, Allen McClelland of Virginian & Ohio fame has suffered a massive stroke. I don't have much else in the way of details. I've been a huge admirer of Allen and his layout. I hope he makes a speedy recovery.
I'm just getting back into trains after golf season has ended and being briefly sidelined by a medical issue. I am just catching up on the news. This is indeed a sad development. The Virginian and Ohio probably had the greatest influence on the layout designs of my last two layouts. Prior to that I had been planning a bowl-of-spaghetti layout so the V&O's linear design with the mainline only passing through each scene one time was a real eye opener for me. Allen McClelland is truly one of the giants of this hobby.