New Ideas In Railroad Modeling By Mourning & Rolofson Trend Book #159

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Money railroading is growing like something out of a science-fiction movie. In recent years, it's even developed enough brawn to become an effective weapon in the cold war. Just ask the Russians. A while back, they sponsored a "World Youth Festival" in East Berlin, an affair they confidently expected to be a master stroke of propaganda. To their chagrin, the whole thing fell flat on its face when thousands of budding young reds-who should have been out parading up and down the streets, regurgitating previously digested slogans-flocked into West Berlin to see a display of American model trains instead.

This fact won't be filed under the heading of astonishing developments by any of this country's 250,000 model rails and brass hats, as followers of model railroading are known. They're fully aware of the fascination their hobby holds. They also know that hundreds of new people are discovering this fascination every year. Unfortunately, when a fresh convert decides to get his feet wet, he generally winds up feeling like a mosquito in a nudist colony. He just doesn't know where to take the first bite. Any hobby that's been around for a while can develop a bewildering number of facets. And model railroading has been around for a long time, a lot longer than most people realize. It's almost as old as railroading itself.

The first trains in this country ran on wooden rails and were drawn by horses, but in 1824 John Stevens, a Hoboken inventor, earned a niche in the railroading hall of fame by becoming the first man in the United States to run a steam engine on rails. The site was a circular track on his estate in New Jersey.

During the next four years a quartet of English built trains were brought into the United States, the most notable being the "Stourbridge Lion," the first locomotive run on any American railway. It was never put into general service, however, as it was too heavy for the thin rails used at the time.

Among other well known early steamers with whose names railroading's antiquarians like to conjure are the "Rocket," which was produced by an English coal miner named George Stephenson in 1829, and the "Torn Thumb," built by Peter Cooper, a New York ironmaster, in the same year. Although Cooper's brain-child, which made its first successful run in 1830, was the first to be operated on any common-carrier railroad in the United States, the English built "John Bull' was the first locomotive put into commercial use in this country.

To the model rail, the most important of the early steamers was none of these. In the minds of the truly dedicated, that accolade must be reserved for "The Novelty," built by Braithwaite and Ericsson of London in 1829. Although it was never seen in the United States, it played a dominant role in the history of model railroading.

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