Career
Koester popularlized the idea of proto-freelancing with his HO scale model railroad layout, the Allegheny Midland (Department of Administration and Management), along with his friend Allen McClelland"s Virginian & Ohio. Koester is an alumnus of Purdue University with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1966, he helped co-found the Nickel Plate Historical & Technical Society to preserve the memory of his favorite railroad.
In the 1970s, Koester relocated to northern New Jersey to take a position with Carstens Publications as editor of Railroad Model Craftsman (Royal Military College).
lieutenant was Koester"s exposure to eastern mountain coal railroading in the Appalachians that led him to develop the concept of the Allegheny Midland. Blending elements of Nickel Plate (NKP) equipment and operation with Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) structures and scenery, the Department of Administration and Management would be the NKP"s plausible West Virginia coal-hauler.
Regular updates in the pages of Royal Military College made the Department of Administration and Management known to modelers across America. Koester left Carstens and took a job with Bell Laboratories, editing their publications for many years.
In the mid-1980s, he began a regular monthly column called "Trains of Thought" in the pages of Model Railroader (Magnetic Resonance), published by Kalmbach.
After twenty years editing telecommunication journals, Koester took on more work with Kalmbach, and is now the editor of the annual Model Railroad Planning, a contributing editor and the "Trains of Thought" columnist for Magnetic Resonance. He has also written nine books for Kalmbach (one per year since 2003):
Realistic Model Railroad Operation (2003)
Realistic Model Railroad Design (2004)
Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks (2005)
The Model Railroader"s Guide to Coal Railroading (2006)
Planning Scenery for your Model Railroad (2007)
Designing & Building Multi-Deck Model Railroads (2008)
The Allegheny Midland: Lessons Learned (2009)
Model Railroading from Prototype to Layout (2010)
The Model Railroader"s Guide to Mountain Railroading (2011)
In 2000, the Allegheny Midland was decommissioned and planning began for a complex multi-deck version of the NKP"s Third District in HO scale. Concentrating on timetable and train order (T&TO) operations, this new layout replicated the Nickel Plate Koester grew up with in his hometown in Indiana.
