John Armstrong (model railroader)
Encyclopedia
John H. Armstrong was a mechanical engineer, inventor, editor, prolific author, and model railroader
best known for layout design and operations. Married for 44 years to Ellen Palmer. They had 4 children.
, and began designing his Canandaigua Southern Railroad model layout when he was 14 years old.
After earning a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University
, he settled in Silver Spring, Maryland
, in the late 1940s. He was employed at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory of the United States Navy in White Oak, Maryland
, for his professional career, and contributed to the design of weapons systems for nuclear submarines. For 10 years following retirement from the Navy, he was a contributing editor for Railway Age magazine.
layout in the basement of the modest Armstrong family home, carefully cutting the cross-ties from balsa wood, setting them on rail-beds made from scale-sized gravel, and then laying out each length of track and carefully nailing it into place with tiny railroad spikes to scale that were hammered into the cross-ties one at a time.
By the time of his death, according to one account, Armstrong had hand-laid more than three real miles of O-scale track on waist-high platforms that bounded a narrow passageway spiraling outward from the foot of the basement steps. Armstrong's son, John P. Armstrong, has said however that he does not think it came to more than 500 real yards of track, but admits he is not sure.
Armstrong's layout grew to become one of the most influential model railroad layouts in the United States and attracted visitors from all over the world.
Alongside and behind the tracks, Armstrong reconstructed the entire landscape of his childhood in upstate New York. Locomotives and rail cars of the Canandaigua Southern Railroad, all built from scratch, rolled alongside rivers, plains and hillsides—all to scale and covered with hand-made stone, grass and trees—and through complete small towns as they were in a time when the railroad was so exotic that it would fire any child's imagination.
Cattaraugus Yard, the switching yard in the far corner of the basement—with its dozen or more tracks that crisscrossed and forked and merged past station houses, power poles, a water tower, signal lights, and beneath a six-story coaling tower, and then into and out of the turntable at the center of the yard that allowed incoming locomotives to be turned around and sent back the other way—was as enthralling to many young visitors as manned space flight.
To reach the switching yard, visitors had to walk the spiraling passageway through the miniature landscape that expanded the basement to enormous size—a landscape filled with railroad stations; houses; bridges; factories; a cliff-side gravel road that ran under a concrete arch supporting a steel railroad bridge in front of a hydroelectric dam with a generating plant beside it topped with twin round chimneys and, above and behind it on a plateau, a solitary white two-story wood frame house; railroad crossings; shacks; coal companies; a three-story brick 'Central Light And Power Company' with a brick smoke stack that dwarfed it, cars loaded with coal from the 'Ynysybwl Coal Company' waiting out front, and high-tension power lines running up the mountainside behind; small town streets lined with banks and stores; and even a careful and detailed reconstruction of the diner in Edward Hopper
's famous painting Nighthawks
, complete with customers, nested up against a two-story beige brick building that had beside it an equally tall red brick building, upon the wall of which was mounted a billboard for an 'East End Hardware' store with their slogan 'Nuts To You!'.
, Frank Ellison
, Whit Towers
and others, layouts were often little more than a "spaghetti bowl" of intersecting tracks on which trains ran in no particular order and with little or no sense of purpose.
Among Armstrong's innovations was the development of a sophisticated electronic control system. Decades before the invention of the personal computer and accompanying software, Armstrong used electronic parts from a variety of sources including pinball machines to build a walkaround control system that enabled him to operate model trains from control stations at intervals throughout the layout.
At one location where the track passed behind a fiber-board partition on route to another part of the layout was a carefully hand-lettered sign that read 'Cut Here In Case Of Excruciating Trouble'. Alongside a spectacularly modeled gorge was a sign recording dates of significant events in the construction of the bridge over it, including 'Last Train Accidentally Backed Into Gorge'.
Among several brochures he designed for the Canandaigua Southern is a 'Timetable No. 9 Effective at 2:01 A.M.' with no date, 'For the Government and Harassment of Employees Only'.
Other humorous touches included a flatcar that had resting on it a piece of machinery labeled as a 'Dolorator', which was ultimately bound for the 'Depleted Lugubrium Reprocessing Plant No. 71' of the 'Lugubrium Corporation of America—Processors of the World's Saddest Material'.
In the late 1940s, Armstrong submitted a track plan to a contest sponsored by the magazine Model Railroader
. His plan was so successful that it led to an invitation to contribute an article to the magazine on the Canandaigua Southern, which appeared in 1946. He remained a regular writer for the magazine, contributing 76 articles, including his last article 'Main line through the mountains', which was published posthumously in the April 2005 issue.
He also served for ten years as an associate editor of Railway Age
magazine.
Armstrong's HO scale
track plan books served as the introduction for generations of model railroaders to the principles of layout design.
He also held at least four patents.
Armstrong was well known in the model railroad community in part through his memberships in the National Model Railroad Association
, the Capital Area O Scalers and the Lexington Group. He was named to the O Scale Hall of Fame in 1998. He was a two-time recipient of the National Model Railroad Association's Distinguished Service Award, in 1968 and 1997, and was named an NMRA Pioneer of Model Railroading in 2001.
Typical of comments made by model railroaders at his passing was that of Ray Grant of Burke, Va., who recalled that he first saw the Canandaigua Southern when he was eight years old.
He passing was also noted in the transportation industry.
Rail transport modelling
Railway modelling or model railroading is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale...
best known for layout design and operations. Married for 44 years to Ellen Palmer. They had 4 children.
Early life
He was born and raised in Canandaigua, New YorkCanandaigua (city), New York
Canandaigua is a city in Ontario County, New York, USA, of which it is the county seat. The population was 11,264 at the 2000 census...
, and began designing his Canandaigua Southern Railroad model layout when he was 14 years old.
After earning a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
, he settled in Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...
, in the late 1940s. He was employed at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory of the United States Navy in White Oak, Maryland
White Oak, Maryland
White Oak is a census-designated place and an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States.-Geography:As an unincorporated area, White Oak's boundaries are not officially defined...
, for his professional career, and contributed to the design of weapons systems for nuclear submarines. For 10 years following retirement from the Navy, he was a contributing editor for Railway Age magazine.
Model railroad construction
In evenings and on weekends he began building his Canandaigua Southern Railroad O scaleO scale
O scale is a scale commonly used for toy trains and model railroading. Originally introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad scale in the United States and remained so until the early 1960s...
layout in the basement of the modest Armstrong family home, carefully cutting the cross-ties from balsa wood, setting them on rail-beds made from scale-sized gravel, and then laying out each length of track and carefully nailing it into place with tiny railroad spikes to scale that were hammered into the cross-ties one at a time.
By the time of his death, according to one account, Armstrong had hand-laid more than three real miles of O-scale track on waist-high platforms that bounded a narrow passageway spiraling outward from the foot of the basement steps. Armstrong's son, John P. Armstrong, has said however that he does not think it came to more than 500 real yards of track, but admits he is not sure.
Armstrong's layout grew to become one of the most influential model railroad layouts in the United States and attracted visitors from all over the world.
Alongside and behind the tracks, Armstrong reconstructed the entire landscape of his childhood in upstate New York. Locomotives and rail cars of the Canandaigua Southern Railroad, all built from scratch, rolled alongside rivers, plains and hillsides—all to scale and covered with hand-made stone, grass and trees—and through complete small towns as they were in a time when the railroad was so exotic that it would fire any child's imagination.
Cattaraugus Yard, the switching yard in the far corner of the basement—with its dozen or more tracks that crisscrossed and forked and merged past station houses, power poles, a water tower, signal lights, and beneath a six-story coaling tower, and then into and out of the turntable at the center of the yard that allowed incoming locomotives to be turned around and sent back the other way—was as enthralling to many young visitors as manned space flight.
To reach the switching yard, visitors had to walk the spiraling passageway through the miniature landscape that expanded the basement to enormous size—a landscape filled with railroad stations; houses; bridges; factories; a cliff-side gravel road that ran under a concrete arch supporting a steel railroad bridge in front of a hydroelectric dam with a generating plant beside it topped with twin round chimneys and, above and behind it on a plateau, a solitary white two-story wood frame house; railroad crossings; shacks; coal companies; a three-story brick 'Central Light And Power Company' with a brick smoke stack that dwarfed it, cars loaded with coal from the 'Ynysybwl Coal Company' waiting out front, and high-tension power lines running up the mountainside behind; small town streets lined with banks and stores; and even a careful and detailed reconstruction of the diner in Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
's famous painting Nighthawks
Nighthawks
Nighthawks is a 1942 painting by Edward Hopper that portrays people sitting in a downtown diner late at night. It is considered Hopper's most famous painting, as well as one of the most recognizable in American art...
, complete with customers, nested up against a two-story beige brick building that had beside it an equally tall red brick building, upon the wall of which was mounted a billboard for an 'East End Hardware' store with their slogan 'Nuts To You!'.
Layout design
Armstrong pioneered and promoted modern layout design, stressing the concept of designing the model railroad as a totality, including its operational scheme, the prototype on which it was based (including its landscape setting), the use of double sided backdrops and other devices to control viewpoints and viewing angles, multiple levels of railroad, staging yards, and the operational plan or schema. Before his synthesis of the ideas of John AllenJohn Whitby Allen
John Whitby Allen was an American model railroader who created the famous HO scale, Gorre & Daphetid model railroad in Monterey, California and authored numerous magazine articles on model railroading starting in the 1940s...
, Frank Ellison
Frank Ellison
Frank Ellison was a famous model railroader. His layout was a free-lance system called the Delta Lines.In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he wrote a series of articles for Model Railroader on "The Art of Model Railroading", later collected into a book Frank Ellison on Model Railroading...
, Whit Towers
Whit Towers
Whitney K. 'Whit' Towers was a model railroader known for his HO scale Alturas & Lone Pine Railroad.He was editor of the NMRA magazine The Bulletin for 10 years....
and others, layouts were often little more than a "spaghetti bowl" of intersecting tracks on which trains ran in no particular order and with little or no sense of purpose.
Among Armstrong's innovations was the development of a sophisticated electronic control system. Decades before the invention of the personal computer and accompanying software, Armstrong used electronic parts from a variety of sources including pinball machines to build a walkaround control system that enabled him to operate model trains from control stations at intervals throughout the layout.
Sense of humor
Armstrong was also noted for his quirky sense of humor that was demonstrated at many locations throughout the layout including an area known as 'Gasmeterszag', named for the detour the tracks made around a gas meter, and another named 'Warm River' after a nearby hot water heater.At one location where the track passed behind a fiber-board partition on route to another part of the layout was a carefully hand-lettered sign that read 'Cut Here In Case Of Excruciating Trouble'. Alongside a spectacularly modeled gorge was a sign recording dates of significant events in the construction of the bridge over it, including 'Last Train Accidentally Backed Into Gorge'.
Among several brochures he designed for the Canandaigua Southern is a 'Timetable No. 9 Effective at 2:01 A.M.' with no date, 'For the Government and Harassment of Employees Only'.
Other humorous touches included a flatcar that had resting on it a piece of machinery labeled as a 'Dolorator', which was ultimately bound for the 'Depleted Lugubrium Reprocessing Plant No. 71' of the 'Lugubrium Corporation of America—Processors of the World's Saddest Material'.
Writing and memberships
Armstrong wrote many books and articles on the subject of railroading and model railroading. And his own model railroad, the Canandaigua Southern, was the subject of many newspaper and magazine articles by other writers.In the late 1940s, Armstrong submitted a track plan to a contest sponsored by the magazine Model Railroader
Model Railroader
Model Railroader is an American magazine specializing in the hobby of model railroading. It was founded in 1934 by Al C. Kalmbach and is based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It is published monthly by Kalmbach Publishing...
. His plan was so successful that it led to an invitation to contribute an article to the magazine on the Canandaigua Southern, which appeared in 1946. He remained a regular writer for the magazine, contributing 76 articles, including his last article 'Main line through the mountains', which was published posthumously in the April 2005 issue.
He also served for ten years as an associate editor of Railway Age
Railway Age
Railway Age is an American trade journal for the rail transport industry. It was founded in 1856 in Chicago and is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. The magazine's original title was the Western Railroad Gazette, and was renamed the Railroad Gazette in 1870...
magazine.
Armstrong's HO scale
HO scale
HO or H0 is the most popular scale of model railway in the world.According to the NMRA standard S-1.2 predominantly used in North America, in HO scale, represents 1 real foot ; this ratio works out to about 1:87.1. According to the MOROP standard NEM 010 predominantly used in Europe, the scale is...
track plan books served as the introduction for generations of model railroaders to the principles of layout design.
He also held at least four patents.
Armstrong was well known in the model railroad community in part through his memberships in the National Model Railroad Association
National Model Railroad Association
The National Model Railroad Association is a non-profit organization for those involved in the hobby or business of model railroading. It was founded in the United States in 1935, and is now active in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and the Netherlands...
, the Capital Area O Scalers and the Lexington Group. He was named to the O Scale Hall of Fame in 1998. He was a two-time recipient of the National Model Railroad Association's Distinguished Service Award, in 1968 and 1997, and was named an NMRA Pioneer of Model Railroading in 2001.
Death
Armstrong died of complications due to pulmonary disease on July 28, 2004, and was widely mourned.Typical of comments made by model railroaders at his passing was that of Ray Grant of Burke, Va., who recalled that he first saw the Canandaigua Southern when he was eight years old.
He passing was also noted in the transportation industry.
Selected books and articles
- "All About Signals" (Two-article series). Trains Magazine, June and July 1957.
- Track Planning for Realistic Operation (Kalmbach Publishing Co, Milwaukee WI, 1963. Second Edition, Kalmbach Books, 1976, ISBN 0-89024-504-5)
- The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does (Omaha, NE: Simmons-Boardman, 5th ed. 2008, ISBN 9780911382587.)
- Creative Layout Design (Kalmbach Books, 1978, ISBN 0-89024-538-X)
- 18 Tailor-Made Model Railroad Track Plans (Kalmbach Books, 1983, ISBN 0-89024-040-X)