Never met Ron personally, I only became aware of Ron after hearing his name mentioned in an episode of "Machines of Iron", About an article on the Russian P36 4-8-4 that was written and published in a 1970's issue of TRAINS magazine. An article I do not have but will be looking for in the future.

Ron, May your signals be green on your railway journeys in Heaven.

Robert

I, too, am saddened by this news and thank Dick for letting us all know.

Having spent my teenage summers on Long Island's North Fork in the early '60s, few here would be surprised to learn that Steel Rails to the Sunrise is my best-remembered birthday gift in 1965. Very shortly thereafter, I met Ron and briefly associated with him (and the late George Foster) on their Sag Harbor project.

I last saw Ron about 15 years ago, when I visited him at his Victorian mansion.

His love of, and passion for, steam railroading was rooted deeper than anyone I have known, and - thankfully - Ron's condition has been proven contagious by the spontaneous remembrances of his many friends.

Peace and Grace to you, Ron, now and evermore....!

Myself and a friend accidentally stumbled into meeting Mr. Ziel during the '91 Huntington. WV NRHS convention. We were chasing the 1218 trip to Bluefield, and decided to photograph it coming out of the North end of Hatfield Tunnel on the return trip, where Mr. Ziel also happened to be. Neither of us recognized him right away, it was only during the banter during the wait for the A that it dawned on us who our new companion was. He certainly was not one to make a big deal of himself.

I grew up on Long Island and have his steel Rails To the Sunrise; a history of the Long Island Railroad.

I never met him; but he was the go to expert on most things that steamed after 1950.

Ted Miles

Let me join the long list of people who were moved at an early age to become active in steam preservation by [i]The Twilight of Steam Locomotives[i]. A photographer cousin had a copy and I just about memorized it in the summer of 1969. When I showed up at Michigan State University a year later, restoring PM 1225 seemed a perfectly fine thing to do. I was able to congratulate Mr. Ziel on the influence of his books during the 1225's appearance at Huntington, WV, in 1991. Never underestimate the power of a single book to change outcomes.

Aarne Frobom
Steam Railroading Institute
Owosso, Michigan

Hi all, My name is Aaron Ziel. I'm one of Ron's 3 Nephews. It is with great sadness of Ron's passing on December 15, 2016 in Idaho Falls Idaho. After his late wife Helen Passed, Ron moved to Idaho Falls about 3 years ago to be with his family here in Idaho.

It has been wonderful reading all the previous comments on how Ron's work has inspired and touched so many lives. He would be so proud to hear all the wonderful comments and memories that all of you have taken the time to share.

Ron was a great man and will be greatly missed... We his family are just so grateful to know of the great historical and nostalgic value of his work and greatly appreciate the time we were able to spend and share with Ron.


In the words of my younger Brother:

My Uncle was a man who followed his bliss... he fell in love with steam locomotives as a kid, and spent his whole life chasing them... I aspire to live life with the same kind of passion... you'll be missed Uncle Ron... the steam may have ran out, but the rails are endless... full speed ahead!


Ronald Paul Ziel July 17,1939 - December 15, 2016

I first met Ron in the mid 90s at a crafts fair at St Isidores school in Riverhead, NY. I began to learn his pitch since I heard it many times latter. " I took all these Pictures". He was an interesting person.

Mike Arnold
RMLI member as well as Twin Forkd NRHS!

Ron moved into residential care during his final years inIdaho, to be near his brothers family. He previously resided in Tucson.

This photo JUST surfaced in a folder of photos at the Md. Rail Heritage Library. I'm not sure whether to just append it to his obituary thread or start a new one, so I'll do both.

The plow is seen here on a public display of some sort, possibly the 1940 World's Fair (note the steps to the left leading into the cab). Photographer unknown, from the collection of Leonard W. Rice via the late Lee Rogers, Md. Rail Heritage Library collection.

From Steamtown 's website, with annotations by me: Built at Cooke Locomotive and Machine Works, Paterson, NJ November 1898 with builder's number 55. Present tender is a Pennsylvania Railroad tender that replaced the original wood-frame tender after 1940. Number 193 was retired in 1965. The plow was purchased by [Ron Ziel] in 1968, and sold to the Steamtown Foundation in 1988. It remained at [the Black River & Western RR] in New Jersey from 1968 until Conrail moved the rotary plow to Steamtown NHS in July 1993. Only surviving steam rotary snowplow known to have been used on railroads east of the Mississippi.

The tender in this photograph is not the tender preserved with the 193 today, giving some credence to the theory that this display is pre-1940 and also close to New York.

The LIRR rotary was indeed displayed at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, and I'm pretty sure the photo dates from that event.

-Philip Marshall

So sad to hear this.
I wrote him a few years ago, telling him how much "Twilight of Steam Locomotives" meant to me as a kid and how I'd checked it out of the library countless times (then bought one as soon as I had my first job). He actually wrote back from a typewriter, with some corrections, about the book and how much he appreciated my letter. I still have that response, of course.

Is anyone aware of what the status is of Mr. Ziel's extensive photo collection? Am I mistaken in thinking that he had a website at one point for selling his photos? Many of his images are of great historical significance, and it would be a shame for his great work to be lost to time.

I recall hearing that Ron Ziel's photographs (slides and negatives) were donated by him to the Queens (NY) Public Library in the mid-2000s. It is not known if they have a catalogue of same or if the collection is publicly available.

K.R. Bell

Ron's personal collection did go to the Queensborough Public Library. Many of his thousands of prints are auctioned on eBay everyday.

It looks like the portion of Ron's collection that ended up in the Queens library, containing over 6 thousand photographs, focuses primarily on Long Island. Any ideas as to where his foreign steam stuff might have ended up? A search on the web archive led me here but the domain has since been snatched up by somebody else.