A Tribute to Crisi - By: Hieke

wow! this looks fantastic what a beautiful job!!!

Superb craftsmanship. Thank you for sharing.

A second WOW!!

Harry I have known you for years . always was impressed with your work. You just keep getting better and better. may I add my WOW as well. Frank

Nice Model......Best I have ever seen...

I'd like to know a little more about the drive arrangements, if that's easily done:

-  By Middle Range, do you mean the Freight [ in NWSL-speak ] gearing versions ?

-  What wheel dia is that and were you satisfied with the resultant speed range ?

-  Did you wire the motors in parallel or S-P ?

-  How much does the unit weigh, and will it slip its drivers ?

With best regards,

SZ

Lovely model although larger pictures would be nice - don't too many of these built up in any capacity.   Very nice!

Curiously, Harry seems to also be gender confused in his avatar and profile,

I think that is because Vicki does Harry's computer entries.

Beautiful piece of work! Small details that actually work have a strange fascination for me, like journal box covers. You must get some great reactions.

Reminds me of a MR article where the builder had great satisfaction from people's reactions on thinking they saw an N scale switchstand move.....which it did.

I'll second the praise of John Crisi and his kit versions of NYC electrics.

While not in the same league with Harry's masterpiece, here is the S-motor I assembled from one of John's kits many years ago. The process basically taught me everything I needed to know about soldering in this hobby.

Jim

Great work. I like the use of the NWSL "traction motors" -- adds to the look of the undercarriage.

John was dear friend of my and lived just a few miles away out here on Cape Cod. We would have breakfast every Saturday along with David Waddington, also now deceased and George Muller who's O scale layout has been featured in magazines. John was a real character. He was a pilot in the service and held a license up into his 70's, own a WW2 military plane. As for the model, the only "stock" part was the Pitman motor but that was not "totally stock. The motor shaft lengths were custom. Every other part on the model was custom made. Wheels were turned from raw stock. The motor gearing was custom made. All the detail castings where custom. It was only to be offered in kit form but due to demand, he would assemble a unit. George and Dave help him do that, and this is back in the 70's and somehow they all wound up out here on the Cape, close by each other. The bodies were all formed out of sheet brass and etched. I have seen all the drawings and jigs and fixtures it took to make the model. It was a fantastic undertaking which he did all again the the T1's. John had a full basement layout with broad turns and super-elevated track.  He had upwards of 10 to 12 of his engines on the layout, pulling long consits of scale Pullman passenger cars. Need to dig up some of my pictures.

Beautiful model. I can't help but think that this type of work will be never be and cannot be repeated in the future. The new generation just doesn't have people with the ability do this type of Craftsmanship. Years back modelers built from scratch and assembled All Nation cars, Scalecraft engine kits and the like. Today most young people have little manual dexterity and couldn't even assemble an Erector set. Model building like this is about to become a lost art.  

I think we'd all love to see your pictures.

Yes it is true, I type all of Harrys stuff so he can be in the shop creating!!  I used my email address!