Louis, Vince, and Earl

E. L. Moore's Kelley's Folly appeared in the Jan '79 issue of RMC

The September and October 1987 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman contained an excellent 2-part series on Louis H. Hertz by Keith Wills in the Collector consist... column. In the first instalment I learned that Hertz wrote his first article for the September 1935 issue of Model Railroader, and that was soon followed by another two for the August and November 1937 issues of the Model Craftsman. Those two were so well received he got a monthly feature in Model Craftsman called Along The Tinplate Track starting in January 1938 that lasted for 124 issues, with a hiatus during WWII. You might ask, so what's so special about that? Ok, well, Mr. Hertz was born on 17 May 1922, which means he was 13 when he published his first article, and 15 when he started his first column. Prior to finding this out I thought he was in E. L. Moore's generation from the 1890s, or maybe no more than 10 years younger. But no, he was a lot younger and a teenager when he got his start. And for completeness, Mr. Hertz died on 28 January 1997.

I mentioned all this to Vince - who has published a lot over the years in various magazines - and he said that he too published his first piece as a teenager. It was a tip that appeared in the January 1979 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. Being the E. L. Moore researcher that I am I should note that Mr. Moore's article, Kelley's Folly: a mill, also appeared in that issue of RMC - august company indeed :-) I'd like to say E. L. Moore first published as a teenager, but his first didn't appear until he was 57. Although, I often wonder if he published anything prior to entering model railroading.