A sad bit of news from the V&O Group on Yahoo! Groups (no,nobody died, thank goodness): > To: J6-layout@yahoogrou ps.com> From: ******@nac.net> Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:05:27 -0500> Subject: Re: [J6-layout] Re: V&O -- End of an era (off topic)> > This is REALLY off topic, but I thought you folks would want to know:> > Allen and Sharon McClelland are selling their Miamisburg O., home and > moving to a retirement community this spring. That will allow them to > gain better control on their retirement funds and avoid heavy > housework. Allen would like to sell the house with the V&O 2.0 > intact, of course. It is fully operational with some basic scenery in > place. An open house is scheduled for Sunday, March 16.> > Paul Dolkos, Steve King, and I are headed out there in mid-March to > photograph and otherwise document every square inch of it for future > magazine articles. An era is about to end. Hard as I try, I cannot > think of a single individual who has contributed more to the > advancement of model railroading from a runs-the-trains activity to > modeling a transportation system with a walk-around design supported > by hidden staging.> > Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. ...> > Tony K.> I deleted part of the email addy of this poster to keep him from being slammed with a lot of emails asking about the fate of the V&O. This, sadly, happens (and may happen to us) when we age- the house gets too big to handle with the infirmities of age, and one must downsize to more manageable circumstances. I sincerely hope someone steps forward to buy this house & keep things running, but I fear the Virginian & Ohio is reaching its own end-of-track. My best to Allen as he moves to this stage of his life, and many thanks for showing us how we can build our own replication of a railroad taking care of business.
I received that same post yesterday. At least his layout has a chance to survive. Remember the sad ending which came to John Allen's G&D... Boxcab E50
A little more info from this group that I'm passing along: There will be a (final?) V&O Gauley Division open house in conjunction with the NMRA MCR Div 3/Div 7 meeting on March 16. Some excess equipment will be available for purchase at that time. See http://www.modelraildayton .com for details as they become available. So if anyone is in the Dayton, OH area at that time,or nearby, it may be worth checking out. It would be nice to see another model railroader buy the house, but there is no guarantee it would be run like the V&O, or even if it would remain the same without some heavy rebuilding. Any way you look at it, another flag is about to fall in the modelrailroading world.
It's a sad day when you have to leave it all behind,I'm sure in his retirement if he still has the ambition he will build another maybe not so large but a smaller version. The housing market, not a good time thay can't even give em away weather it have a model railroad or a new car inside. A new car is a universal selling point,a model railroad not so universal. Maybe they should just consider a reverse mortgage stay put and enjoy the home and railroad until their final check-out dates like in the commercail that Robert Wagner has been pitching. Long live the V&O divison
Pretty sobering stuff. The modeling bug first bit me back in the mid to late 70's. Although the V&O was started in the early to mid 60's, that was my first exposure to it and I was hooked. I purchased every print article I could on V&O and other similar layouts. The articles MR and RMC did on the V&O and the Midland layouts in the late 70's probably had more to do with me getting the nerve to eventually do my own layout than anything else I had ever read. Can't say that I follow the V&O practices or even try to emulate it in any way. However, the beautiful job McClelland did in capturing the feel of the Blue Ridge Mountains was fascinating to me. Mainly because I loved model railroading and having been raised in Virginia, I loved the Blue Ridge and the area of where much of the V&O was based. I had always loved the C&O since early childhood. The V&O has become such an "institution" in model railroading, that many admirers just assume it will live forever. Another facet of its greatness. I hope it gets saved in some way.
As long as there's a model railroading hobby, I'd believe it will live on. If only in memory. :thumbs_up: Boxcab E50
IIRC, there are bits & pieces of the original V&O still around- one or two sections are in layouts, while another is at the NMRA HQ in Tennessee. Wonder if Allen Keller can shoot a quick video of the V&O Gauley Division before its demise.....there's already a farewell video to the Afton Sub out.
I would hope there'd be a video. For the old V&O, there are at least two videos available. One by Allen Keller, another from Pentrex. Any others? Boxcab E50
