Meet Jerry Dziedzic
What was your first train set (or locomotive)?
How about three, in different scales? Like so many youngsters, a Lionel circle around the tree greeted me one Christmas morning. I suppose this was in 1956 or 1957. My dad had fun, too. He used two sheets of plywood to build an 8 x 8 layout with an oval main and a siding. More gifts followed every year: a log loader, a dispatcher’s office, and a reversible gang car. A neighbor a few doors down modeled in HO. That bug bit me, and another Christmas brought a Varney Docksider train set in the early 60s. And, in 2009, I branched out into 1:1 scale on a Cumbres & Toltec Scenic K-36. I now hold engineer’s and conductor’s licenses at Steamtown.
Describe your model railroading philosophy in 6 words.
Six words violates my warped sense of iambic pentameter. How about this? Don’t take yourself too seriously.
What has been your biggest modeling success?
I model part of my hometown railroad, the New York, Susquehanna & Western. Susquehanna was a vibrant northeastern Class I in 1947. I proto-freelance operations in rural northwestern New Jersey where Susquehanna routed coal, cement, and merchandise traffic to the metropolitan New York area. Lehigh & New England trains run over most of the main line via trackage rights. I also model the Lehigh & Hudson River and its important bridge traffic between CNJ, LV, and PRR connections and the New Haven at Maybrook, NY. Power includes a variety of transition-era steam and diesel of the anthracite roads.
Here’s what proto-freelancing means to me. Sparta Junction is my favorite location on the layout. Its tower guards the junction of Susquehanna and L&HR with a 20-lever machine based on Erie interlocking practice. The actual Sparta Jct. was a simple diamond crossing protected by a tilt board. However, towers have always been a special interest of mine, so I hatched a scenario that replaces the diamond with crossovers controlled by a tower. Similarly, passenger service on these lines ended well before 1947 but passenger operations continue because I like mail and milk trains. I couldn’t resist a New Haven DL-109, either, and I found ways to use a Pennsy K4 and E6.
This, my second such layout, has been operating for about 10 years. Signature scenes are now coming together with help from friends. Perry Squier built a freight house and two stations and Rich Remiarz a third for me. Joe Binish built the Sparta Jct. tower. I enjoyed working with each of them to extract dimensions from photos, ICC valuation records, and other documents. Perry’s latest, the Beaver Lake station, is especially satisfying because Bob Mohowski and I measured it almost 40 years ago when it still stood. I completed a scratchbuilt depot and two kitbashed stations of my own, too.
What was your biggest modeling mistake?
My first Susquehanna layout was doomed from the start. It had a long loop of hidden track that was impossible to maintain, although the mice loved hanging out there. The layout also had some Armstrong blobs that required broad expanses of scenery which I never completed. I confess: I suffered frequent derailments from some track laying shortcuts I took. Many of the derailments were disastrous because I used spline roadbed construction on open benchwork. Resin cars make disturbing sounds when they hit the floor.
What’s your least favorite modeling task?
Building trees. A resin kit wins hands down over a SuperTree every time. I’m probably unusual because I’ve completed almost every resin kit I bought. Freight cars are great because you get to paint and letter them, and their completion makes a hard stop. I wish trees were like this. It takes the better part of a day to populate a square foot or so, more time to clean up the mess, and the task reminds you how endless it is.
What project(s) have you been working on recently?
Cement cars – that is, covered hoppers – are my favorite car type. My workbench has a baker’s dozen in progress for Tom Schmieder’s Lackawanna layout. The project spans three different designs with five roof and hatch configurations, messy details I relish. Most of the cars are kitbashes of Accurail and Tichy USRA twin hoppers. Any excuse not to build a tree, right?
This reminds me of the ore car fleet I built to handle zinc ore from L&HR’s biggest shipper, New Jersey Zinc. Roughly half are resin kits from Short Line Products and Westerfield. The remainder are kitbashes I produced from so-called “Michigan” ore cars by Varney and MDC which resemble the Pressed Steel Car designs of the L&HR cars. I guess there are 20 or more on the layout; ore cars seem to reproduce themselves.
Five L&HR cabooses are on deck for Tom and me to divvy up. He needs some Magor offset side hoppers, too.
What advice would you give to a new hobbyist?
Do something. The hobby enjoys more information today than it ever has. However, don’t let articles and videos make you an armchair modeler. You can’t acquire a skill by reading about it or watching it. The first step is usually the hardest, so start a project and do something.
On the other hand, no one must do everything. I’ve enjoyed plenty of help from others: tuning up trackwork, hanging backdrops, cleaning track and wheels, designing an interlocking and installing decoders. And I’ll happily build a resin kit for someone good with trees who’s willing to trade a bushel.
Editor’s note: Jerry authors “On Operation” in each issue of Model Railroader. Read “Hosting a virtual operating session.” Find more of his columns in our digital archive. He also contributes to Trains Magazine.
