OScale Trains

Product News & ReviewsNEWS: Code 100 & 125 Tie Plates, see below for pricing.Smoky Mountain Model Works, 35 Springwood Drive;Asheville, NC 28805-1626828-777-5619 • www.smokymountainmodelworks.comNow shipping: Tie Plates in Code 100 and 125. Either sizefits Micro Engineering’s rail. The Code 125 plates also fit RightO’ Way Code 125 rail. Both sizes are available in packagesof 500 for $11 each and 1000 for $15 each (plus $5 shippingper order for USPS Priority). The parts are cast in a semi-rigidurethane that grips the spike shank as you insert it throughthe tie. There are 100 tie plates per sheet, tinted a light brownto simulate moderate rusting.NEWS: Loads for Weaver Hoppers; MSRP: $8.95 ea.St Charles Model Works, PO Box 27, Claytonville, IL 60926815-457-2453 • www.trainloads.comTrainloads.com, a division of St. Charles Model Works, hasannounced a full line of coal loads for all Weaver hoppers.Trainloads.com offers four different loads per car configurationin fine, medium, large, and mine-run for 2- and 3-bayhoppers. For 4-bay hoppers they offer two fine and twomedium loads.BOOK REVIEWS: Cincinnati on the Go (ISBN 0-7385-3337-8), The Cincinnati Subway (ISBN 0-7385-2314-3)Arcadia Publishingwww.arcadiapublishing.com • 881-313-2665reviewed by: Roger C. ParkerAlthough publishers of railroad books often feature themass transportation networks of larger cities like Chicago andNew York, there are often equally-fascinating stories in thetransportation histories of smaller cities, like Cincinnati, Ohio.Luckily, there are authors like Allen J. Singer, and publisherslike Arcadia Publishing, to serve the needs of readers interestedin the transportation history of America’s “other” cities.Arcadia has published two highly entertaining and informativebooks by Allen Singer about public transportation in Cincinnati:Cincinnati on the Go: A History of Mass Transit, and TheCincinnati Subway: History of Rapid Transit.Cincinnati on the Go describes, in pictures and text, thesurprising variety of ways individuals moved throughout thecity in the days before the proliferation of the automobile.Readers are treated to a visual tour of everyday citizens usingriverboats, cable cars, horsecars, streetcars, railroads, interurbans,and busses between home, work, and entertainment.For example, when level areas of the city became built up,residential growth took place vertically on Cincinnati’s numeroushills. This required a new technology, inclines. Inclineswere used more in Cincinnati than in most other cities.Inclines transported pedestrians, horsecars, and trolleys up thecity’s steep hills. Restaurants, dance pavilions, opera facilities,and bowling alleys were constructed at the top of the inclines,serving citizens looking for higher altitudes, cleaner air, andlower temperatures during the summer evenings.Indeed, Chapter 3, Carriages, Horses, and Inclines, is oneof the highlights of the book, because it contains line drawingsand photographs of several of Cincinnati’s signature inclines,one of Cincinnati’s most visible and unique mass transportation“systems.”Chapter 1, On the Shores ofthe Ohio, is my second favoritechapter, not only because of theriverboat pictures, but because ofthe discussions over what to dowith the Miami-Erie Canal, whoseimportance was supplanted by railroadslate in the nineteenth century.One of the most elaborate was touse the canal bed as the entry to aproposed two-level union stationthat would have rivaled St. Louis’ ifit had been built.What Might Have BeenSinger’s earlier volume, The Cincinnati Subway describesthe birth and death of an urban subway system that was virtuallyready to run, but never operated when it was abandonedseven years after constructionbegan. (This book was reviewedin detail in this publication’sModelers Bookshelf blog/forum.)The story of Cincinnati’s subwayis a story of civic endeavorthat was doomed to failure by aninability to put the public goodabove that of private gain. Likemany other civic transportationstories, the Cincinnati subway wasunderfunded and underminedby short-sighted apathy, glowingpromises about bus transportation,and partisan politics.As a result, the two mile rightof-waywas never operated as a subway, notwithstanding thefact that signage and benches had already been installed inthe stations. Stalled by the war, the subway was deemed obsoletewhen the postwar automobile age ushered in a new, butdisastrous, optimism.Intended MarketBoth Cincinnati on the Go and The Cincinnati Subway illustrateArcadia Publishing’s primary strength, to hire knowledgeablelocal and regional historians to treat topics too specificfor many of today’s colorful “art books,” yet too importantto go unreported. Both books are available for less than $20each, and both contain hundreds of quality photographsshowing what things were like from contemporary points ofview.In doing so, Arcadia Publishing provides modelers withdocumentary evidence of what life was like in a differentcentury. Today’s modelers can see not only the examples ofthe railroads, streetcars, or subway structure featured in eachbook, but also the surrounding streets, buildings, and signagethat form the environment within which the transportationsystems operated.AvailabilityBoth volumes are available at area bookstores, independentretailers, on-line bookstores.54 • O Scale Trains - Sept/Oct ’06