Steam Whistle Music Music Tracks Ahead Brought to you by: Rancho de Tia Rosa, three unique Mexican restaurants serving culinary delights since 1990.

Music Hi, I'm Spencer Christian.

On this episode of Tracks Ahead, we'll look at the east coast version of the "Train that changed America."

We'll look at a slice of the New Haven Line that's been preserved in N gauge, look at four layouts under one roof in the shadow of the Golden Gate, and visit a bed and breakfast in Vermont that has a very special feature.

The creativity and ingenuity of American industrialists and designers have given birth to a number of items that have gone on to become beloved icons of a generation.

Everything from the Ford Model T, to Coca-Cola.

From the Harley-Davidson motorcycle to the Barbie doll.

They are all uniquely, and proudly, American.

In the world of trains, back in the 1930's, there was a train that both served and impressed a generation.

In New Hampshire, it's a train that's coming back to life.

Annc: From day number one it wowed whoever saw it.

Thousands of people lined the tracks just to see it run through town.

The Flying Yankee was smoother running and cooler looking than anything that had come before it.

It sort of resembled a silver bullet, and was as fast as one, too.

It was as elegant as it was functional.

And it was made in America at a time when America needed something to believe in.

Introduced in 1935, during the Great Depression, the Flying Yankee brought riders back to commuter trains which had fallen on hard times.

It was built for the Boston and Maine Railroad and it ran between Boston and Portland, and Portland and Bangor.

It was one of three similar trains, all built by the E.G.

Budd Company of Philadelphia.

They were ultra-lightweight, stainless steel streamliners.

The Flying Yankee was sure something to look at.

Three cars that carried a total of 132 passengers.

She was sleek, but she was a workhorse.

750 miles a day, 6 days a week, at speeds above one-hundred miles per hour, when many folks were used to riding old steam trains.

She combined hi-tech and hard work.

The first to have electric heat as well as air-conditioning.

The first to serve hot meals.

diesel electric motor that blew the old steam locomotives away.

It was a ride you would never forget.

Elliott: It was a pretty enlightening experience to get on these, in those days by comparison, a bright car, the large windows.

The thing that impressed I think was the way the train got up to speed, the acceleration rate and the quietness of it.

Annc: Over the years, the nameplate on the front would change as it transitioned from a commuter train to an excursion train, but the nameplate on the rear always said Flying Yankee.

In 1957, after 22 years of service the Flying Yankee was retired from service.

It was a victim of its small passenger capacity and the growing popularity of the interstate highway system.

Carl: The train ran for 23 years, making its last run on May 7th of 1957.

And then was given to the Edaville Railroad on Cape Cod where it sat for 40 years.

Robert Morrill, a New Hampshire business person who actually developed Storyland, a very popular attraction had a vision to retrieve the train and restore it.

And he wanted to do that for two reasons.

One personal, that is his dad had been a conductor on the train, and the other is that he thought that this train, for its novelty and ingenuity, represented Americas best ability to bring ingenuity to bear on problems, which of course was the condition of railroads in the middle of the Depression, when America was at its lowest ebb in the last 150 years.

So thats how de determined to purchase the train and bring it to New Hampshire and commence the restoration.

We have been about the business now of restoring the train to fulfill our vision of restoring it to its operating condition so people can experience what it was to ride this kind of streamlined train in 1935 when the world was pulled by steam and railroad cars had moveable windows.

Annc: Millions of dollars and countless hours have been spent refurbishing and restoring this masterpiece, and the job is getting closer to completion.

While it's sister trains have been partially restored and are on static display, plans are for the Flying Yankee to be a fully functioning three car moving train once again.

Carl: Once it is running, the train will be spotted here in Lincoln, New Hampshire and during the summertime, we will operate the train as a unique tourist experience, running the train down the track towards our capitol here in New Hampshire of Concord.

The reason that we're here is that the line from here to Concord is indeed owned by the state.

And that is why several years ago we sold the train to the state for a dollar, only to have a partner who would survive us.

And so during the summer time we would intend to operate it on a five day basis as a unique excursion.

Dick: Well, when we found it down in Edaville Railroad, it had been sitting there since 1958, 40 years, and so it was in pretty tough shape.

It had been vandalized, and parts and pieces were all over the place.

And so our biggest project initially was stripping it down to bare metal, as you saw in the C car.

And getting it to that point before we could start putting it back together and making it as authentic as possible.

Things that have been purchased and are done is the trucks have been rebuilt and they're sitting in cages over here ready to be put back under it.

The traction motors are done and ready to be used, the 721s.

There's no others around so those are going to be used and the experts tell us that they're good for at least ten years.

And then of course the interior of the B car, all the seats in the entire train have been redone by Thelma Hanson, a lady here in Lincoln, she did them herself.

And then we have lots of pieces and parts.

We have five containers full of parts ready to be put back in that we've purchased over time.

Of course we're sitting in the engine compartment, and that's the biggest piece, to find out what kind of an engine we can use for main power.

The Winton that was originally there, there are no spare parts for it.

We started to restore it, abandoned that when we found out there wouldn't be any spare parts.

If we broke down someplace, we were dead in the water until we made the part.

So we're talking to various companies about the possibilities of a genset, or green, an engine of the future if you will, which is what this train was when it was here in 1935.

We want that to be the engine that drives the unit.

Annc: It will be a museum on wheels and an icon for education.

A train that will be as comfortable on an excursion, as it will be when it serves as a classroom.

Lou: The concept is a rolling classroom where you can bring the youth of New Hampshire and explain the history of this train and of the Great Depression.

How engineers, artists and businessmen got together and put this system together in the depth of the Depression.

People from all over the world, not just New Hampshire or New England will come to take a look at this one of a kind artifact and see what it was like when it ran in its heyday.

Annc: When the Flying Yankee was first introduced it was a testament to American ingenuity, hard work, and creativity.

It offered inspiration and hope.

It lured people back to trains, and dazzled them with the allure of rail travel.

How impressive that she will get another chance to do the exact same thing.

The Flying Yankee continues to maintain its status as a must see tourist and educational attraction.

Author David Popp had a long family history of model railroading.

And when he had the time and space, he created a testament to a line in the 1959's era of Connecticut.

David: My dad was very much into model trains, and growing up some of my earliest memories are being in the basement with him as he was working on his HO scale layout.

My grandfather was also very much into model trains; I have been around model trains my whole life.

It is just what I do for fun.

Pretty much my layout is modeled after the New Haven's Line along the Naugatuck River in Connecticut.

I have set it in the year 1959.

Part of the reason that I modeled this particular line is that it is very rich in history, in industrial history, and railroad history, and also it doesn't hurt to have an actual prototype to go back to when you are looking for well, information on well, how does this industry work.

I he got a location, I have got a place in the world that I can go look and find out; OK, well this is the type of traffic it had; these are the types of passenger trains that they ran.

When I first came to Model Railroader, I was living in a small apartment, and so there was no room for my big HO layout that I had had previously when I was teaching.

So that all had to be torn down and put away.

I wanted to keep model railroading so what I did was designed a small model railroad that could fit in a small apartment easily enough, but yet could be stacked up into a closet so that it was out of the way during normal apartment use.

I started the idea of writing a series of articles on how to build a layout in your apartment, and still get your security deposit back; which was kind of the theme for it.

Once we had built the house, that little layout was finished, I had written several articles about it and I thought "Oh" it is time to move on to something else.

Well the little layout kept hanging around, and I just kept coming up with ideas on how to expand it and make it bigger and so I started building it in sections basically.

The layout is currently broken into about 5 sections because there are individual zones of where the work has occurred.

This is the primary section, the first piece.

It took about a year to build it from start to finish.

This has got some of the more bucolic kind of the Connecticut scenes to it.

The little street area is one of my favorites with the little shop fronts, and the different people and details and things.

I had an N scale layout back when I was a kid in the 1970's, and N scale was in it's infancy then so there wasn't a lot available for it, nor did the equipment run very well.

But coming back to it in 2002 when I started the layout I was amazed at all of the wealth of details of different figures and vehicles, and all of that that was available.

It has made modeling very enjoyable.

While there are a lot of materials that are commercially available sometimes you have to build your own too.

The rowboat over there in the river over there for example with the guy fishing out of it that was modeled out of a boat that my grandfather had years ago.

It was a wood boat, and I just cobbled it together with small pieces of styrene and than painted it to look like his boat so you can make them too.

Section 2 connecting to section 1 has a nice industrial area for the town on that side, but more importantly it has got a staging yard on the backside, and that is where trains come and go off of the railroad.

Next to that is section 3 which is this piece right here, and this includes Waterbury which is the hub of the railroad.

So during an operating session trains will come up the rail line, they will come into Waterbury, and they will broken apart into smaller trains, and then sent out to go switch the industries back down the line and than north and other locations.

And than all of the passenger trains too come into Waterbury and most of them turn around and go back out.

So it is really a key point.

And in addition to Waterbury this piece here really counts as section 4.

It is not very big compared to the rest of the railroad, but it has got some very industries.

In particular, this is the Waterbury Gas Works is a key industry in the town of Waterbury at the particular time that I am modeling.

This is the newest section.

This is a branch line which runs all of the way from Waterbury all of the way north to the town of Winston, Connecticut, and that is where the railroad terminated there.

The buildings on this section for the most part are for the most part fictitious.

They look New England, and the industries are names after real industries on the railroad, but for the most part the buildings are put together with kit bashing where you take several different kits and cut the pieces together and make something completely new out of them.

A few buildings on here are close to what their prototypes should look like.

The Torrington Station which I am standing next to here is a rough facsimile of what the Torrington Station really looks like.

This section is finished well enough to be operated, so when my operating crew comes over to run trains, you know, things look reasonably finished.

But there trees that need to be filled in on the hillside here.

There is a whole industry here that is missing from this corner.

There should be a cement plant there.

have parking lots and things that don't have the scenery work done on them yet, and I have whole buildings that are still in raw plastic that that need to be painted and weathered.

So this is it.

This is the entire Naugatuck Valley as it stands in its 5 sections at the moment, and that is the beauty of N scale is because we can fit all of this stuff in, and I still have plenty of room in the rest of my basement to add more.

So we can keep going if we need to.

In hindsight building the layout in sections or piece by piece is really a wonderful way to get started in the hobby.

You've got the enjoyment of I am just working in a small section so I can try things out, and if it doesn't work out too well I can take it out and I can replace it.

But the other thing is that you can have a microcosm to hone all your skills in before you start working on a bigger railroad.

So working in small pieces, but having an idea of where you can grow it to make it larger and larger is really a smart way to do it.

So if I had it to do over again; this is the way I would have started.

David reminds everyone that you don't need much space to start in the model railroading hobby.

In a minute, we're going to a bed and breakfast, hidden away in the northern Vermont hills.

In addition to the scenery and solitude, a featured attraction is a unique railroad.

First, we're going to San Francisco, where a long time club has built not one, but four layouts under one roof.

Annc: Mention San Francisco, and you'll usually get a visual image of the Golden Gate, cable cars, and other sites of the City by the Bay.

One little known spot for visits is the Golden Gate Model Railroad Museum.

Located on the East side of San Francisco Bay in Richmond, the museum is host to one of the oldest modeling clubs in the nation.

John: The East Bay Model Engineers Society started in 1933 as a general modeling club.

It was located in a small room above a hobby shop in Oakland.

They moved to a few other locations and settled into a warehouse in Emeryville where they were located for about 50 years.

The organization has about 75 members, that are divided up between the three scales that we model.

Annc: The current display is actually four layouts.

The smallest is a large N gauge layout.

Joel: Our N scale layout is about 1100 square feet in area.

Ah, we model from about the 1950s to the present.

Our modelers like to model a bunch of different eras.

Our best areas on the layout are Tehachapi Loop, which is a well known rail fanning spot in Southern California, where trains cross over themselves on the way up the Tehachapi Grade.

We also model Donner Pass.

We have a track going through the summit with snow sheds and tunnels, and ah, the third one would be Elvis Wye, where trains go in three directions from the Bay area and the Sierras and the Central Valley of California.

Annc: Next stop is the HO gauge layout.

Again representing railroading in the Golden State, the division names say it all.

There is something here for everyone.

Walt: Our HO layout basically models the three main railroads that ran from the Bay area east, the Western Pacific, the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe.

We have a number of divisions.

We have a Canyon Division that ran through Niles Canyon back east.

We have the Cal Tee that ran from the old Oakland Mole that ran along the Bay through Martinez, Pinol, Fairfield, up to Sacramento.

We have our Mountain Division that basically models the railroad over the Sierras from Roseville up to Truckee.

Snow sheds, and other details that we've tried to faithfully model.

We also have a Narrow gauge Division, and that models a lumber line in the Sierras, and finally a traction line that modeled the old trolley routes that ran from Oakland over the Bay bridges to San Francisco.

Annc: An O scale layout is the largest of the museum's layouts.

Jeff: The concept for this O scale layout, our standard gauge which we call the Santa Fe Western was to evolve from the prior layout at Halleck Avenue, where they had large curves, a lot of straights, and so the developers of this layout wanted to follow through with that concept.

They wanted to have long running trains, rolling curves, lots of mountains.

The three focus areas would be the Pantela Mine area, the On3 narrow gauge area that's representative of California mining and western mining overall, the Arch Bridge area on the standard gauge layout, as it covers a deep gorge, great expansive area, rocky terrain, high mountains on either side.

And then further down is our lake area where we have a bridge going across the lake into the back part of the layout.

Most of our trackage on the main railroad is all hand laid on a sub-base of splined material.

Its one-half inch by one inch splines, nine of them been laminated together.

And the reason we did that was to make nice transitions in between the curves and the tangent parts of the track.

Annc: There is one additional layout to view.

In October, 2008, the layout of popular TV personality and train collector Tom Snyder was donated to the Museum.

John: When Tom passed away his wife spent about a year looking for a location for the layout, because Tom did not want to see the layout taken apart and sold piece by piece.

Some of the highlights of Tom's layout are typical of the Lionel prewar structures, such as the Hellgate Bridge, the passenger station and power station.

Lionel prewar structures, such as the Hellgate Bridge, the passenger station and power station.

On the other end of the layout are some unique features such as a, two slot car tracks and a trolley track.

The museum is open on Sunday afternoons from Noon to 5 from April through the end of the year.

When people visit the museum, I'd like them to come away with a sense of how much work that we've put into this effort and how much fun we've had doing it.

Annc: The next time you find yourself in San Francisco, take a side trip to Richmond, to see a recreation of California railroading.

Music Annc: Hidden in its own upland valley, with a view down the side of the Green Mountains, Windekind Farms is a place where human creativity and nature meet.

Here, 35 minutes from Burlington, Vermont, owners Mark and Marijke Smith accommodate guests searching for a quiet getaway or looking the perfect wedding venue.

Mark: They come here because of the mountains and the country and the gardens and the buildings.

They come here to get away from the city and the congestion and they're looking for peace and quiet.

Marijke: They always say, "Wow.

This is beautiful.

What an amazing place.

This is like paradise."

Annc: Its easy to see why visitors are drawn to this 160 acre working farm.

Marijke: The first usually people see the gardens and they really like it and they walk around and then they say, "Wow, you have a railroad?"

And they are completely surprised.

Mark: They're surprised by the railroad.

Always surprised by it.

And they engage it quickly.

They're curious, and so they're asking questions about it and whatnot.

Marijke: They ask if they can have a ride on the train and then Mark takes them around and then they have another surprise because they go all around through the loops and the farm and over the dam.

They go through different landscapes.

Mark: The railroad becomes a very quick part of the package.

Unplanned.

The railroad is 25 years old.

It was built initially at 1/8th scale.

Now it is 2.5 inches to a foot which means it's slightly larger than 1/5th scale.

It's a narrow gauge railroad now and it's modeled as a narrow gauge railroad.

It's really important to me with the guests to be honest with them about the trains.

This is not a toy.

And I tell them that.

It's a, to the best of my ability I tried to present the trains as historically accurate, running like a real railroad and so on.

Authenticity really is very important to me.

Annc: Trained as an historian, Mark founded and published the train magazine Locomotive and Railway Preservation.

During his tenure with the magazine, he came to really appreciate the essential role that railroads played.

Mark: Railroads linked village to village, city to city.

They ran through the American landscape and made standards of linkage.

And I think that linking feature of railroads is the one reason people miss them.

Annc: For Mark the linking feature of his garden railroad is ideal for transporting people through the various environments on his lot.

Mark: It's a transportation world.

And at this scale, it can haul some pretty impressive loads, large numbers of people, firewood, those kinds of things.

So I take it seriously as a railroad, an operating railroad, that operates much the same as a prototype railroad would operate.

I try in the machine shop to make it feel like a railroad shop.

Because I like the way railroad shops feel.

So for example I tend to use tools that would be similar to what railroaders would use in their shops and whatnot.

By and large they're American tools and my historic tools.

Annc: One of those tools is a 120 year old lathe, that Mark's used to build his first locomotive more than two decades ago.

Mark: It's a camelback locomotive, which means it has a center cab and a wide firebox in the back.

It's good operating locomotive.

It's pulled 18 adults on flat track, and once it pulled 37 cars on a bet.

(Laughs) Annc: Mark's dedication to the railway, and the love he and Marijke share for their farm is evident in every detail of this very special place that they created together.

Marijke: They always say, "Thank you so much for sharing your farm."

So I feel like we share in something that is ours, we give something to other people.

Mark: Marijke and I have spent our lives developing the lawns and the gardens and stone walls and whatnot.

So the railroad and the landscape and gardens are very much one and the same.

The gardens enhance the railroad, and the railroad enhances the gardens.

And we enjoy that and clearly people come here and enjoy that too.

Check the Windekind Farms website for reservations and times.

Well, that's it for this episode.

Please be sure to join us next time for more, Tracks Ahead.

Tracks Ahead Brought to you by Rancho de Tia Rosa, three unique Mexican restaurants serving culinary delights since 1990.

Walthers, manufacturer and supplier of model railroading products; serving the hobby since 1932.

Music