Rich and Alan-
Thank you for taking Todd Architectural Models and Layouts on as an OGR print advertiser and Forum sponsor. It has been a long ride to get to this point and I look forward to sharing my modelmaking experience and service capabilities with the O Scale community.
Perhaps a little history is in order. I learned of Lionel trains on Uncle Joe's floor in Valley Stream, Long Island in the 1960's. Visits to Trainland were the norm as were hours on the LIRR platforms eating popcorn and waving to the engineers. Fast-forward to the late spring of 1978 and I had a job lined up with the Missouri Pacific Railroad as a summer intern- part of my requirements for getting a civil engineering degree. Two weeks before I was to report, the letter came advising me that budget cuts had eliminated my position. I graduated from Lehigh University in 1980 and reported to Edwards & Kelcey in their Railroads & Mass Transit division. Four years were spent at E&K where I worked on the Washington Metro, the design of Linden Yard for the NYCTA, platform extensions on SIRTOA and the Long Branch yard as part of the electrification project. Next came four years at The RBA Group in the Land Development department. If you stay in a Courtyard Hotel in New Jersey or stop at a NYS Thruway service plaza, I was the consultant civil engineer to Marriott for those projects.
Then came the decision to take on a model shop. Always thinking that I wanted to be an architect, enjoying providing professional consultant services and having a long-smoldering interest in modelmaking, I took the plunge to first manage and then own a model shop. The firm is now in their 47th year, having been founded in a Somerville, NJ garage on April Fool's Day in 1968.
My interest returned to O scale trains seventeen years ago when Linda took me to the Somerset 4-H Fair to see the rabbits and all I saw was the trains. A little over a year later the Somerset 4-H Trainmasters were formed and the Somerville shop was the ideal place to teach kids and their families about model trains. Thanks must be offered the folks of the Independent and Raritan Valley Hi-Railers for their patience with in those early years! The Trainmasters have grown from a group of six to now over 30 and they received the MTH Blue Comet Award a few years back. The club was also featured in OGR's issue on modular clubs.
That brings us to this morning and my interest in offering our services to the OGR community. Over the coming months we will be presenting historical kits, building fronts in either kit form or built-up, a dynamic shelf display for your "queen" and ready-to-run layouts designed for kids. Our first project is a PRR Standard Tool Shed kit. It will be available in either the clapboard or board & batten siding designs, and in either standard or extended length. There will be interior stud walls and a laser scored wood floor. It is designed for a 2-rail track to enter the shed, just like the prototype.
Some of you may have seen our building flats. They are designed to be in kit form and I have been selling them as 4-piece built up sets. The parts are interchangeable and the painting and detailing options are infinite so no two will ever look quite the same. We will also be offering them as building kits, complete with interior floors and ceilings. Look for a new point-of-purchase style website in the coming weeks.
Lastly for now, we can make your laser cut windows and doors. I'll ask your permission to add them into our product offerings once the work is done. If you would like a historical structure to be made, we will ask you for drawings and photographs. If you want laser cut pieces to make tall city buildings, we can do it. We have layout builder accounts with track suppliers and will be offering services for that starter layout that you see in catalogs but may not have the time to build.
My shop is in Chatham, NJ and you are welcome to schedule a visit. You will have to get by the two energetic labs first!
