Excerpts from full paperback, at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Only the tip of an iceberg of the full book at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6V69QVF
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ 1145811373?ean=9798218451257
ISBN: 979-8-218-45125-7
by Robin Miller
More by Robin Millerwww.filmaker.com
Cover: 3in/ft scale narrow gauge live steamer is among 210 images in Premium Color in the paperback print edn.
Toy trains are built to ride by a half-million enthusiasts in the USA alone who buy engines, cars & track in the billions of $/yr Many large-scale railroad buffs recognize Miller Backyard RR (MBRR) kits they find & use. The toymaker-also saved Conestoga Big Bang Cannons after a fire, rehired its workers, a technology company, and an iron foundry. Bob Miller’s dozen entities employed 600.
With a half million enthusiasts in the U.S. alone, Chicago Tribune calls model railroading “one of today’s biggest hobbies.” Also hot in Germany, France, & England. The model RR market is $1½ billion, plus private buying and selling of rolling stock and track – an evergreen market, as it doesn’t seem to age. And has some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet; here are storied some enthusiasts today, and a few honored from yesterday
Historically large-scale backyard railroading – large enough for children & adults to ride – was from 1877 mostly a hobby for men & boys;
from age 15 in the Gallery chapter in the full book. But today of also women & girls from 17 – Pamela Weiss, Ellen Thompsen, & Meredith Stewart (below R) are among those active, and featured in the book
women, large scale model railroaders get their hands dirty making and operating big electro-mechanical toys. The author’s interest to age 4 on a stool mezmorized by my dad’s HO putz, then soon riding his 1½ inch large-scale (1/8 of fullsize) “backyard” trains.
Mid-South Live Steamers, Columbia TN. Women are participating and featured in the book
Men &
Vivid memories from age 10 having the job of second machinist and principal shipping clerk for Dad, aka Rob’t E Miller, whose hobby-business for a decade was Miller Backyard Railroads. Miller parts were metal, made to work & last. And appear in new work by today’s enthusiasts in the book’s Gallery chapter – fully a third of this book to introduce a few largescale model railroaders who invite you to their rewarding and fun hobby.
What is so fascinating about model trains? They’re toys. And ‘kids of all ages’ like to play. Perhaps the pinnacle of the hobby still are engines powered by live-steam, meticulously made replicas of the first locomotives, exacting in motive power as much as looks. The most involved to make, maintain, and operate. In resources they require in time & materials; they are also the costliest. And at the same 300lb/in2 pressure as full-size locomotives, they can be the most dangerous – and set the leaves on fire!
To succeed in the mail-order model RR business, pioneer suppliers like Cliff Pettis in Texas in the mid-1930s made backyard railroading easier to have. Marketing savvy as much as mechanical know-how and energy were the hallmarks of only a few One was Bob Miller, who at 30 in 1949 bought two suppliers to found Miller Backyard Railroads, an accessible supplier of kits or fully assembled railroad engines, cars, and track for 1,000+ layouts in the USA to Venezuela, widely advertised in Model Railroader magazine.
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Robin Miller – Excerpts from the book “Little Engines that Can…
Today, modelers have a far wider range of technology for rolling stock not available in the mid-20th century: computer-aided design (CAD). Numerical control (NC) machining to remove material. Additive 3D-printing for one-off parts, and instead of carving casting patterns
Full size mishaps draw spectators, and model RR fans - no one hurt in 3-train mishap.
McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, Scottsdale AZ, is one of dozens of large-scale model Railroads in the full book.
Even with today’s many avocations and other distractions, the model railroading hobby is more popular than ever. Clubs and LLCs have formed for layouts that would be too great an undertaking for most individuals. In the full book’s Gallery chapters, dozens of hobbyists pool talents to help one another, especially with skilled machining or complex electrics.
Among many scales for RR models, most popular is 1/87-size HO-gauge most model railroaders participate in year-round because it’s indoors! Fullscale railroads are energy-efficient and safe, but do have accidents Like highway rubber-necking, people flock to mishaps, like that above a couple miles from the author’s home. One day it will be depicted to scale.
The Toymaker of the Christmas City
The author’s father, Bob Miller, left HO to make 7½ in gauge model trains, ⅛ full size; his catalog of kits enthusiasts could make & ride is in the full book.
Then after a devastating fire put Conestoga Big Bang [toy] Cannon’s workers out of their jobs, MBRR founder Bob Miller bought and restored the factory, and hired back its plant manager and workers. He did the same for a burned down foundry to make castings for both his toy companies. He had become the “Toymaker of the Christmas City,” Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Bob Miller, the author’s dad, wore only green suits. He quipped he was too often mistaken for the minister by church parishioners who congratulated him for his sermon. Did he self-describe as an entrepreneur? Not everyone then knew what that was.
Elected to City Council, was he a politician ? That might cast him in a bad light. After a break in sunny Florida, where he’d partnered with Bufalo Bob Smith making personal stock tickers, a socialite praised his tan; he joked he was “a ditch-digger.” Partly true, working on working a backyard railroad!
Bob Miller sought publicity only to further a cause, not for personal gain. An example is offering to ordinary citizens $100 shares in Bethlehem Risk Corp, which between 1963 and 1976 built “shell” buildings in newly founded Lehigh Valley Industrial Parks, LVIP. Prospective employers were attracted by a quick up-&running, needing only walls & furnishings to move in.
This solution was a catalyst for the seven LVIP business centers that are home to 500 companies and 24,000 employees It saved the City of Bethlehem from being a one-industry town when that industry collapsed, laying off half the City’s workers. A newspaper editorial years later asked: “Where are the Bob Miller’s today?”
The full paperback Little Engines that Can and Toymakers who Create them is at… https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6V69QVF or through booksellers, ISBN: 9798218451257
This article is the intellectual property of Robin Miller or his heirs or assigns. Dissemination of any of its content beyond a brief attributed quotation or review is prohibited without prior permission in writing. Inadvertent use of any IP of others is protected by Fair Use as educational and historical material.
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Robin Miller – Excerpts from the book “Little Engines that Can…