Originally from Long Island, N.Y., Ziel traveled worldwide in pursuit of steam locomotives in the 1960s and early 1970s, publishing his images and observations in three books, “The Twilight of Steam Locomotives,” “Steam in the Sixties,” and “The Twilight of World Steam.” He also wrote “Steel Rails to the Sunrise” about the Long Island Rail Road, as well as four additional books about the LIRR. During his career, he published 15 books.
Ziel was a fine arts graduate of Pratt Institute in New York City and a U.S. Army veteran. It is estimated he took more than 25,000 photographs of working steam locomotives around the world. His photos and articles appeared in Railroad magazine, Trains and other rail publications.
His collection of images, historic and contemporary, of the Long Island Rail Road, as well as other transit vehicles on Long Island, is held by the Queens Library in New York. He personally purchased the Long Island’s steam rotary snowplow for preservation, and it is now part of the Steamtown National Historic Site collection in Scranton, Pa.
Ron and I weent to high school in Huntington, NY, at the old Simpson HS which is now the town hall. We were both in the Ground Observer Corps too. Bravo ime three five black. Aircraft flash I have two reports.
Mr. Ziel was a great historian, and his work on the LIRR is legendary. I have my paperbound copy of Steel Rails to the Sunrise I bought in 1976, and still find it useful for occasional bits of research. We’ve lost one of the great ones.
The Ron Ziel book that I remember the most is “Steel Rails To Victory”, his story about the contributions of railroading during World War II. I was able to obtain an old copy of it in 1981 while serving on a detail at the Fort McClellan, Ala. post library helping sort books being recycled. I remember asking if we could keep some of the books and this is the one that I kept. I still have it, 35 years later.
I loved his book, “Steel Rails to The Sunrise.” Also, his book about stations on the Long Island. I’m sure that he’ll be busy in heaven.
I enjoyed Ron’s books, and he was close to my age. It seems like he owned a Royal Hudson for some time.
The man wrote a great article for Trains about steam locos in the Soviet Union back in the 70s. Or was it in the 1960s?