Kirk Reddie, Editor and Publisher of N Scale Railroading magazine, passed away on April 8, 2024.
Kirk grew up and resided in Shoreline, Wash. When he was 4 years old, he received an American Flyer train set. His modeling focus shifted to HO scale when he was in eighth grade. In 1975 Kirk switched to N scale in 1975. He noted that Jim Hediger’s December 1976 article “The Ntrak Story” was a big inspiration to his 1:160 modeling efforts.
N Scale Railroading magazine made its debut with the September/October 2000 issue. In his first editorial Kirk wrote, “The success of an effort like this depends on many things, including a large quantity of arrogance and humility — and to know when either is appropriate. I hope you enjoy this magazine and will look forward to future issues. Those of us involved are working hard to earn the support of modelers, retailers, and manufacturers.”
The January/February 2020 issue was the final print edition of N Scale Railroading. The magazine then became a free monthly downloadable pdf, which continued until October 2022. “I had hoped to print 300 issues — we did it our way for just under 20 years,” Kirk wrote in the last print issue. “We could have made some changes and gone longer, but I didn’t want to cheapen NSR. What follows won’t be the same; the plan is to have some strengths we couldn’t do in the present format.”
In addition to working on the magazine, Kirk was in the process of building the N scale Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound. The 48 x 96-foot N scale layout was, the subject of articles for N Scale Railroading and also featured in November 2022 issue of MR, was set in the Pacific Northwest circa 1950. The layout modeled five railroads (Great Northern; Milwaukee Road; Northern Pacific; Pacific Coast RR; Spokane, Portland & Seattle; Tacoma Belt Line; and Union Pacific) between Argo Junction and Black River Junction, south of Seattle.
