{"id":663,"date":"2009-06-22T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-22T14:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=663"},"modified":"2021-06-19T17:02:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T17:02:56","slug":"more-on-carl-appel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanootoday.com\/?p=663","title":{"rendered":"More on Carl Appel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About a year ago I posted briefly about the Norfolk and Ohio layout of Carl Appel, perhaps the greatest American OO gauge layout ever built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since then I have come into possession a copy of his obituary that was published in Model Railroader<\/span>. I was hoping with this post to be able to say what issue it was from exactly, as it came to me as a clipping. However, this issue falls in a period when I did not subscribe to the magazine and I don\u2019t have access to the issue. My guess is probably September of 1997 [See UPDATE]. This photo of Appel is from the article by Jim Hediger. He wrote,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carl Appel, one of the hobby\u2019s pioneers, died on June 24, 1997. He was 94\u2026.<\/p>

Appel\u2019s extensive OO scale Norfolk & Ohio RR was featured in the August 1948 and November 1958 issues of MODEL RAILROADER. It was one of the first home layouts to realistically reproduce a specific prototype location (the Norfolk & Western terminal at Lynchburg, Va.). Appel was an expert scratchbuilder, completing nearly a dozen N&W steam locomotives which featured sprung drivers and tiny ball bearings on the axles and in the gearboxes. Longtime MR editor Linn Westcott described these models as “exceptional.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

They also note that \u201cCarl Appel was the fourth-generation owner of Appel Jewelers, Allentown, Pa.\u2019s, oldest family business which was founded in 1847.\u201d Periodically a model or two from his layout comes up on eBay, always items to keep your eye peeled for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPDATE: The piece quoted above on Carl Appel was published in the October, 1997 issue of Model Railroader<\/span> on page 22. The photo is a scan of the photo published in MR<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giving more detail, according to his local newspaper obituary he attended Lehigh University and had a degree in electrical engineering, taking over the family jewelry business when his father retired in 1930. From that article,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employee Robert Bungerz, who has been with the store for 14 years, remembered Appel as dedicated to his father’s business and<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

” … an absolutely phenomenal employer and a big jokester,” But Bungerz noted “His (Appel’s) true love was his model railroading.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He did have one other strong hobby interest though, and that was big game hunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A member of the African Safari Club, Philadelphia, Appel had a great interest in big game hunting. He and his wife went on a number of Africa and Indian safaris in the 1950s and 60s, including Tanganyika and East Africa. In his later years he became a leading advocate for game conservation and for the elimination of the use of ivory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He had an outstanding collection of big game trophies, which included animals from Africa, India and Canada. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Returning to the models he made, from the level of detail in the scratch built steam engines in particular it makes total sense he was a jeweler with an engineering degree! It is to be hoped that those models are still out there somewhere, a legacy of his love of American OO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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