1921 (Taisho 10) Monday, July 25 Model railway researcher Yamazaki Kiyo (alias Yamazaki Yoshiaki) was born in Sasebo City, Nagasaki Prefecture. Yamazaki has had a strong interest in railways since he was a child. Before the war, he won the Model Railway Speed Competition and the Traction Competition sponsored by the magazine “Science of Children”. The “Science of Children” is still being published energetically, and in 2024 it will mark its 100 year anniversary. Yamazaki later graduated from the Faculty of Science at Tokyo Imperial University, and his passion for model trains grew rather stronger than subsiding as he grew older. At last, he launched the 1947 (Showa 22) magazine called “Model Railway Hobbies.” After the war, he became a leader in the world of model trains in Japan, and he was active on the front lines until his later years as president and chief editor of Kikei Publishing Company, the publisher of this magazine “Model Railroad Hobbies.”
He has published many books on model trains, such as “How to make an electric locomotive anyone can make”: 1946 (1946), “Making a Japanese steam locomotive”: 1963 (1963), or “The collection of locomotives of the Meiji era and the collection of the Transportation Museum”: 1968 (1968). As a noteworthy achievement, “Steam Locomotive Style Book”: in 1963 (1963), a drawing of the phantom steam locomotive “C 63” was also published, which is considered very valuable. He died in 2003 at the age of 82.
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