Famous people in the hobby

Michael Gross

 "famous people who are into the hobby?"

 

    The most famous I know of is Tony Koester.....DaveB

I believe the late and great Nat King Cole was into the Lionels.

 

     Hoppy

President William J. Clinton. I believe he had G-gauge in the White House.

FrankM

Ronald Reagan had a G Gauge train set. A photo of the White House in Barbara Bush (41)'s memoirs also shows LGB trains running under one of the trees. 

Now that I think about it more, I seem to recall reading that Winston Churchill was also a model train enthusiast.

 

 

Taylor Swift, if you are reading this, you can come over here and run trains with me any time you want! lol

     Joe De Nenardo The weather man from WTAE channel 4 in Pittsburgh used to show different peoples layouts before Christmas and he liked lionel O gauge. Choo Choo Kenny

Interesting to hear. Thanks for adding that.

Seems to me i remember that once a year, a huge layout was featured (for the better part of an entire week) on Captain Kangaroo...plus,he had an "ad" for Kellogg's cereal with a bowl on a flat car, and "milk" would pour from the water tower into the bowl...

 

Mark in Oregon

Kenny:

 

Thank you for reminding us of Joe DeNardo.

 

More recently wasn’t there a radio personality on KDKA who was into toy trains and would talk about them and promote the hobby on the radio?

 

Bill

There is a photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower watching a Marx train run in the White House.  He was friends with Louis Marx.

WftTrains,

The gentleman who you are thinking of is Rob Pratte.

Joltin joe had great taste in steamers-- still the best looking engine ever

How many of you remember Frasier Thomas, the WGN living person who fronted for Garfield Goose and Friends when I was in grade school.  He had a huge layout in the Chicago area that was dismantled when he died many years ago.

 

Chuck

What about Mr Rogers lol!

Chuck....I remember Frasier Thomas and Garfield Goose.  I also remember the layout!  Frasier also hosted a show I believe was called Family Classics..???

 

Frasier was kind of like Captain Kangaroo in the Chicago area in those days!!

 

Alan

Do you suppose he had an 'operating Cigar Unloading car' 

Charles Ritz.  He is more well known for my other hobby but he mentions his affinity for trains in at least one of his books.

Not well known nationally, but I recall meeting and talking with former Hawaii State governor John Waihee, and the late Gabby Pahinui, a well known Hawaiian Slack-key musician, while shopping at Honolulu Trains & Hobbies (now closed).  Nice guys and both O Gaugers!  

 

Alan

Former Maryland Governor William Donald Schafer had trains and the B&O Museum has displayed them at Christmas in past years. 

 

Joe Biden is a well know train enthusiast although I have no clue whether or not he has any toy trains. 

Oh what was it, been so long since I saw it on OPB, there is a castle I think in England with a model railroad used to deliver food, run by steam do to its great age. Coated in sterling silver, I forgot who had it put in, been so long. I think i saw it on tracks ahead when it was still on.

I remember Joe doing that.

 

 

 Our hobby has had lots of famous people participate in it, one of them is our nations most decorated hero, US Army SGT Audie Murphy.  When you participate in this hobby you have some serious companionship.

PCRR/Dave

 

 When somebody tries to tell you it's not manly to play with toy trains, remind them that our nations most decorated soldier, played with them every Christmas season until he died.

 

I didn't know that about Audie Murphy.

Chuck

 

I remember Garfield Goose. He used to come on at 3:30 on channel 9 WGN in the afternoon when I was a kid in Chicago in the 60s. I grew up on the north side near Our Lady of Lourdes. What side are you from?

 

http://chicagotelevision.com/frazier.htm

 

FRAZFACTS

• A skilled writer- he wrote his autobiography as well as nine children's books.
• Created television documentaries about his travels
• Born in Rushville Indiana in 1918
• Built a sprawling miniature train set in his basement
• Personally selected the films aired on Family Classics and supervised their editing
• Sadly there are only a handful of episodes that exist from this long-running series and most of those are from the 1980s version! 
• A one-minute commercial on Garfield Goose & Friends cost $500 in 1966! 
• The original puppeteer on the show was Lee Ann Prineas.  Roy Brown began as a graphic artist.

Doug

Emmitt Smith

Ricky Nelson

Lucille Ball

Jerry Mathers

Here's a fairly good list on Wikipedia:  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki..._transport_modellers

     Bill, Jim Sutter is correct about Rob Pratte talking on the air about trains and he also was instrumental in getting A lot of local train cars made by MTH. There were Iron City Beer, Kennywood and Islays just to name A few. I got to meet Rob many tears ago at the old J&J Train Connection in Turtle Creek. I was picking up the Iron City Beer blue oval box car and he asked me if I wanted to sell it? I told him no I was getting it for my dad to continue with the collection. He told me that A former Pittsburgher who now lives in Hawaii was trying to get that car and was willing to pay $800.00 for that car. I told Rob my dad would kill me if I did not get the car and we would be missing one car from the set. Choo Choo Kenny

Don't know for sure but I would guess the Rock & Roll singer Bob Seger might be into trains. He has written & recorded many songs that mention trains in his music and done many videos with trains in the videos. Just to mention 2 for example the video for the song Like A Rock the band is actually on the train playing a piano and the song Long Twin Silver Line refers to a train traveling through the states on it route. He has a album cover on his Greatest Hits 1994 album standing on the railroad track with his guitar & Ultimate Hits 2011 Album waiting at the railroad crossing. I think that could be a lot of very good clues that he could be one of us, his music reflects everyday life like ours.

Thanks Jimmy and thanks Kenny for the additional information re Rob's influence on MTH.  l have most of those MTH Pittsburgh cars some of which I bought from Jimmy!  I remember visiting J&J, too.

 

Bill

ROTFL!!!

How many remember 

Captain Kankaroo and Mr Green Jeans and Ray Rayner all 3 were Lionel Train men!!

 

and yes

 

Manfred von Richtofen aka "The Red Baron"-Standard Gauge

Famous Chevrolet drag racer Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins.Not only collected O Gauge trains also did a lot of railroad photography and a fan of the Pennsylvania RR

Famous people or not 75% of all of my friends from my 1950s days in Flatbush Brooklyn had either Lionel or American Flyer. At age 5 my train father as I called Victor Merrill from 1620 Ocean Av. in 1949 took me and his oldest son Larry to the Lionel showroom layout just before it opened to the public as his company helped design the 1949 showroom layout he told me. Five years ago Kamlbach / Classic Toy Trains ran a video on their website showing Lionel showroom layouts from the 1920s thru the 1960s. At about 2 1/2 minutes into the video there I was at the corner of the layout closest to the entrance into the room that the layout was in. I contacted the company that produced the video from a longer version and I was sent two copies that has more about toys and trains that what was shown on the website.

I think this guy is pretty famous...at least to those of us of a certain age...

 

Rich,

I had no idea that you have another side. I'll leave it alone with that out of fear.

 

God's Blessings,

"Pappy"

I wonder if the Eisenhowers are about to play with their trains or set them up for David.

 

"I did not run trains with that woman"

"You'll have to define what "scale" is."