Chris White — Red Star Railways

[Szdfan]

I don’t know if any of you know Chris White of Red Star Railways. https://redstarrailways.com
 

Chris passed away a couple of weeks ago. I’ve known him since 1998. Chris was a pioneer in modeling Soviet and Russian railways, first as an importer and then as a producer of resin models. 
 

For several years, his big red star sign was a landmark at the Timonium model train show outside Baltimore.
 

I am not aware of any plans to continue producing his models. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Szdfan
Added link

[cteno4]

Oh man, I’m so sorry to hear this. I knew he was ill for awhile but did not know it was that bad.

 

Chris was a great guy, very interesting chap. He would usually be at Timonium train shows with Red Star Rails and a couple of our members were into Russian trains so we would see him a lot. He was also part of the world train group that would meet up usually in the Delaware area to talk and run worldwide trains. Chris always had a couple of shoe boxes of new stuff in process to show off.

 

Jeff

[Szdfan]

7 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Oh man, I’m so sorry to hear this. I knew he was ill for awhile but did not know it was that bad.

 

Chris was a great guy, very interesting chap. He would usually be at Timonium train shows with Red Star Rails and a couple of our members were into Russian trains so we would see him a lot. He was also part of the world train group that would meet up usually in the Delaware area to talk and run worldwide trains. Chris always had a couple of shoe boxes of new stuff in process to show off.

 

Jeff

Chris used to tell me that he admired the Washington, DC Japanese group that displayed at Timonium, because they were having the most fun.

[cteno4]

4 hours ago, Szdfan said:

Chris used to tell me that he admired the Washington, DC Japanese group that displayed at Timonium, because they were having the most fun.

That’s sweet. We always try to be as “un-club” as possible and resisted being a club for a long time officially... Even though we were not doing Russian trains he always stoped by and chatted and was enthusiastic we were doing something different. There was camaraderie between us rebels. One of our members was from Russia and enjoyed talking with him. He was also great in that he would share all the bits of wisdom he built up on producing trains, always with a new way to so some but easier or better material, etc and it was always interesting to learn even if I never was going to do a production run of some cars!

 

He will be missed, his tall Red Star sign use to be one of the major beacons the club would use to describe where something interesting was in the big cow barns! 
 

jeff

[Szdfan]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

That’s sweet. We always try to be as “un-club” as possible and resisted being a club for a long time officially... Even though we were not doing Russian trains he always stoped by and chatted and was enthusiastic we were doing something different. There was camaraderie between us rebels. One of our members was from Russia and enjoyed talking with him. He was also great in that he would share all the bits of wisdom he built up on producing trains, always with a new way to so some but easier or better material, etc and it was always interesting to learn even if I never was going to do a production run of some cars!

 

He will be missed, his tall Red Star sign use to be one of the major beacons the club would use to describe where something interesting was in the big cow barns! 
 

jeff

Yeah, I miss my friend. He was always encouraging me to build something. I think it’s time for me to get out of my armchair to honor him.

[cteno4]

Sorry for the loss of a friend like that, it’s hard. I still miss ardesh so much (he ran trainaids.com) as we would do a long lunch every couple of months and spend 3+ hours just talking trains, cool things to make and ways to encourage the hobby. Nice there are good eggs like Chris and Ardesh out there making the odd bits for the hobby not done by the bigger companies.

 

I forgot to mention first rule of train club, only do the events you find fun, not required to do any you don’t want to or a minimum amount! Last thing we ever want is the club not to be fun for anyone.

 

jeff

[Railtunes]

I just answered your latest post on the TEM-2, before I saw this news. I never had the opportunity to meet Chris, but I'm sorry to hear of his passing as well.

 

- Paul I.

[Doddy]

Just read this post after finding out Chris had died.

 

I found Chris to be really easy to negotiate deals with and thanks to his generous assistance I now have a G scale 2TE10 under development.

 

I liked Chris' philosophical attitude and learnt as much about myself as of Chris himself.

 

R.I.P. Chris

 

Robert