Introduction to MSR

There is not much written about Miniature Steam Railways (MSR). One of the only sources of information available on MSR is on the Marc Horovitz site http://www.sidestreet.info/locos/intro.html where you will find a page featuring a 1990 produced MSR loco as the January 2007 'Locomotive of the month' http://www.sidestreet.info/locos/loco81.html MSR was also featured in the wonderful book ‘A Passion for Steam’ by Marc Horovitz first published 2008, second edition published 2014 ISBN:978-0-692-23826-4.

The information on the January 2007 'Locomotive of the month' page informs us that Miniature Steam Railways (MSR) is a little-know American manufacturer that existed in the 1980’s and early 1990’s under the leadership of Jim Wilson of Dallas, Texas.  MSR was in fact a joint venture of two good friends Jim Wilson and Terry Shirley. Terry Shirley is also mentioned in the Marc Horovitz article.

As soon as I read about MSR I was very impressed by the loco and thought it would be superb to replicate it. I have written a short history of MSR to preserve a record about MSR and their “Plantation Style Loco”. I have acquired all the remaining original MSR parts and also replicated MSR components to be able to build Plantation type engines for myself.