I am looking for any and all information about O-scale model railroader Minton Cronkhite. He built several well-known layouts in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, as well as the original "Museum & Santa Fe Railway" exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. I've written a history of that layout with some biographical info on Minton at my website, MidnightRailroader.com, but I want to go deeper. If you have old photos of Minton or his models you'd be willing to share, or have any personal experience with the M&SF, if you're one of the people who bought any of the Museum's rolling stock, locos, or structures when they auctioned them on eBay, or if you know how I might contact any of his family, I would very much like to hear from you. Shoot me an e-mail at scott@midnightrailroader.com.
Truely a remarkable display for it's time and one that should have been perserved. It is a sad state when people who are trained (pun intended) in the perservation and display of history bungle such a national treasure and squander large amounts of money in the process. Mr. Cronkhite was a consumate artist and pioneer in 1/4" scale models and a national treasure himself that will sorely be missed. It is my wish that others take heed of this debocale in the future. It is a wonderful thing you do in perserving his legacy and accomplishments, Thank You. "Still Training After All These Years"
According to my bibliographic file, published references to Cronkite's layouts are at: Model Railroader June03 p.56, Jan89 p.97 Warbonnet (publication of the Santa Fe Rwy Historical & Modeling Assn) 4th Quarter 1996 p.7,8,9 I have some 1973 slides of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry layout including a high angle view almost straight down on the layout from an upper balcony.
I sent you a private message a while back, Ken, but I'm betting you didn't see it. That issue of Warbonnet is sold out, so I need to find someone who has a copy and would help me. I"d like to see those slides; can we work a deal for me to borrow them and get them printed?
Yes, I will dig them out... I hadn't really paid attention to "private messages". I remember once or getting one that turned out to be some kind of generic announcement, and I stopped checking. Sorry I missed you. Contact me via email: leighant at hotmail dot com. (Change word "at" to the symbol and "dot" to the symbol. I wrote this out so a human can translate it, but address harvesting cyberrobots will not recognize it) I would be happy to loan them to you. I don't have a way to scan slides to computer files. If you could scan your prints after you have em printed, I would appreciate getting a floppy.