"5000 Railroads Run for Fun"

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Atkinson_Railroad
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Location: Michigan
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"5000 Railroads Run for Fun"

Post by Atkinson_Railroad »

"5000 Railroads Run for Fun"

A recent trip to the Sandy Ridge and Clear Lake Railway near Battle Creek moved me to dig out some old Riding Railway Newsletter issues.
It was a short lived publication covering the big outdoor gauge railroads. I was looking for an issue I recall featuring the S.R. & C.L. Railway.

I found the newsletter I was searching for, but I also got "side tracked" by another tid-bit of info.

In the May/June 1997 newsletter issue featuring letters to the editor, a gentleman wrote, "... if there were 5000 backyard RRs in '52,
imagine how many there are now!"

The writer to the newsletter editor was referring to a Popular Science magazine article entitled "5000 Railroads Run for Fun".

An initial search through all the 1952 magazine issues came up empty for me.
It turns out the Popular Science story actually ran in March of 1953... not 1952.

In doing a search here to determine if the article had been mentioned on this forum board in the past... I found nothing.

If you've not seen the write up... here's the URL to the article at Google Books:
(From the link you'll find the story begins on page 99.)

https://books.google.com/books?id=xywDA ... nce&f=true

This line from the article gives me a kick.

"... your back-yard Casey Jones is a rugged individualist. He builds most of his equipment from scratch to his own specifications."

Have fun with the short read if you've not seen it before.
It helps explain where some of us came from ; )

John
Pontiacguy1
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Re: "5000 Railroads Run for Fun"

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

Their definition of Outdoor railroads is just that: Outdoor. So that would lump us in with all of the garden railroaders out there. Might just be true that there were 5000 outdoor railroaders back then. Who knows... There are probably 2 times that many now if you are counting everyone. The advertisements were very interesting. Lots of ads for becoming a TV repair man. Haven't seen a TV repair shop in probably 20 years or more.
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dnevil
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Re: "5000 Railroads Run for Fun"

Post by dnevil »

Nice article John, thanks for sharing!
Daris Nevil
IBLS Secretary
North American Region
http://www.ibls.org
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