Model Forum / General / Railroads / June 2004

I could use some help

(snip regarding information on famous people with model railways)

Michael Gross (the actor who played the father in "Family Ties" about 20
years ago) is the only living one that immediately comes to mind.

Two that come to mind are Joe Regalbuto, the fellow that played Frank Fontana on Murphy Brown.
Then there is Walt Disney and one of his early animators, Ward Kimball.

Ward and Joe were written up in RMC back when Joe was on Murphy Brown and when Ward passed away.

 I could use some help as many folks I meet at shows, etc. ask about well know public figures who are into this hobby. Be it sports, drama, politics, or whatever...........any help with identifying public figures who play with trains................past or present would be much appreciated. Example: Tom Snyder, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Mike Schmidt, Kurt Shilling,  etc. I'm also planning a rather lengthy coffee table book on model railroading as a fine art and plan on interviewing as many of these folks as I can.......and of course the already established great modelers such as Bob Lawson, Bill Aldrich, George Sellios, Lou Sassi, and many others.
 Thank you
 HZ
 Howard Zane
 5236 Thunder Hill Road
 Columbia, MD 21045
 410-730-1036

I'll add Rod Stewart and that short child actor from Different Strokes...

Here is a big list of celebrity model railroaders -
http://www.boldts.net/TrainsCelebs.shtml .
It even includes fictional characters like Gomez Addams.

This page contains another list of celebrity mrr.
http://users.foxvalley.net/~osn/WeirdRailNews.htm .  And here too
http://www.geocities.com/jackseay_2000/LMRA/index-23.html .

I once saw Mandy Patinkin's
(http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800015208&cf=biog&intl=us) model
railroad on a TV show.

Looks like there were some videos done on celebrity train layouts
(http://www.lonestartrains.com/videos.html)

Scott Povlot

There is Al Lowe, the creator of the Leisure Suit Larry games. This is from a
recent CyberJoke email:

****
Some of you may be wondering why I've been neglecting my web site lately. My
excuse is: I'm managing two other (model railroad) sites as well and lately the
one for our national convention as been eating up my time. The convention ends
July 11, so mid-July will be filled with all the new humor I've collected
recently!
****

His humor web site is http://www.allowe.com

I do not know the URLs for his model railroad sites, but I did send him an
email asking about them.

Neil Young is another one, he was on the tonight show several years back talking about his hobby.
PeteC
 I could use some help as many folks I meet at shows, etc. ask about well know public figures who are into this hobby. Be it sports, drama, politics, or whatever...........any help with identifying public figures who play with trains................past or present would be much appreciated. Example: Tom Snyder, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Mike Schmidt, Kurt Shilling,  etc. I'm also planning a rather lengthy coffee table book on model railroading as a fine art and plan on interviewing as many of these folks as I can.......and of course the already established great modelers such as Bob Lawson, Bill Aldrich, George Sellios, Lou Sassi, and many others.
 Thank you
 HZ
 Howard Zane
 5236 Thunder Hill Road
 Columbia, MD 21045
 410-730-1036

Eric Clapton

 I could use some help as many folks I meet at shows, etc. ask about well know public figures who are into this hobby. Be it sports, drama, politics, or whatever...........any help with identifying public figures who play with trains................past or present would be much appreciated. Example: Tom Snyder, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Mike Schmidt, Kurt Shilling,  etc. I'm also planning a rather lengthy coffee table book on model railroading as a fine art and plan on interviewing as many of these folks as I can.......and of course the already established great modelers such as Bob Lawson, Bill Aldrich, George Sellios, Lou Sassi, and many others.
 Thank you
 HZ
 Howard Zane
 5236 Thunder Hill Road
 Columbia, MD 21045
 410-730-1036

The comedian Gallegher (sp?). (The guy that smashes pumpkins.)

He was doing a show in Nashville last year. He was upstairs in the
Civic Auditorium, GATS was downstairs. He came in and walked around
for quite a while, bought some Lionel stuff, IIRC.

Mike Tennent
"IronPenguin"
Operating Traffic Lights
Crossbucks
Special Effects Lighting
http://www.ironpeng.com/ipe

I'll verify the Rod Stewart addition, he recently called us at Bar
Mills to order the "Booty Corner" kit... anybody want to know his cc#,
phone number & address?... FORGET ABOUT IT... NO WAY!... also Dan
Blackburn, goaltender of the NY Rangers (another BMSM regular) bulding
a layout in an apartment in Manhattan!

Art Fahie