HiRailers Unlimited is a not for profit organization whose goal is to provide a communications line with manufacturers regarding Hirail products. We also wish to provide a location for people interested in HiRailing to communicate with each other.
Our group, HiRailers Unlimited exists on your contributions.
Our purpose is to provide a quarterly newsletter, the
Buzz, this web site, the Egroups and a meeting held once a year at the York
show. After you have had a chance to view this site and visited our Egroups chat
board please consider a contribution of at least $15. This will enable us to
continue to provide the afore mentioned locations for you to visit. Please make
your check payable to HiRailers Unlimited and mail to:
Art Hopkins Thank you. In 1996 Joe Lesser and Art Hopkins started a “HiRail
Special Interest Group (HiRail SIG).” Their vision for “HiRail SIG” was to
organize three-rail hobbyists like themselves who sought to replicate the
building of a layout or modules as prototypical as possible into a collective
group who expressed their desire for new prototype products from the
manufacturers. In its infancy, this group had no particular name and was just
known as “Hi-Rail SIG.” The first formal meeting of “Hi-Rail SIG” was at
York, Pennsylvania on the evening of October 16, 1997 at the Holiday Inn. This
meeting featured Frank E. Qualls displaying an “Independent HiRailers”
module, and discussing modular railroading and also showcased Fred Severson of
QSI Industries as the guest speaker. There was a large turn out for this meeting
and a lot of interest in Hi-Rail modeling was exhibited. This spurred Lesser and
Hopkins to proceed with their idea of establishing the “Hi-Rail SIG.” A
formal name was sought for the organization and “Hi-Rail Modelers Unlimited”
was chosen. Subsequently, two more meetings were held, one in San Diego,
California in July 1998 with the guest speaker being Mike Wolf of MTH Electric
Trains, the second meeting was at York, Pennsylvania on October 15, 1998, which
highlighted Jim Weaver of Atlas O and others. The “Hi-Rail Modelers Unlimited”
continued to evolve through their newsletter, which communicated the latest in
Hi-Rail information and events to those hobbyists who made financial donations. In May of 1997, Qualls of metropolitan Washington, DC founded
“The DC Area Independent Hi-Railers” module group. This occurred following
his tutelage under Steve Horvath of the “Independent Hi-Railers” for several
years. As a method of communicating with the module group, Qualls started
writing a local newsletter named “The Hi-Railers Buzz” which kept the
members informed about each others module building progress. However, the
newsletter became an avenue for contributing articles from other Independent Hi-Railer
groups. This resulted in a wider circulation than the local Maryland and
Washington, DC area. In December 1998, Lesser contacted Qualls and suggested
that Qualls’ group join with his and Hopkins’ group and combine their
newsletters by amalgamating their editorial skills. This was done since much of
the information in the “Buzz” about module modeling related directly to home
layout modeling also. Thereafter, “The Hi-Railers Buzz” became “The
Journal of the HiRail Modelers Unlimited and Independent Hi-Railers.” “A
Newsletter for Hi-Rail Train Hobbyists and Module Builders.” We continue to progress as we strive to be the source that
hobbyists may come to for all of their Hi-Rail information. We have changed our
name to include all Hi-Rail hobbyists whether they have a permanent home layout
or modules. We are now
10433 Shadyside Lane
Cincinnati, OH 45249
HiRailers Unlimited History
John N Shankland Webmaster