The owner of Alpine Division Scale Models, Orange Vista Traction Products and The Innovator Line was born and raised in Southern California. The Pacific Electric Southern District four track line was located a mere two blocks from his childhood home. Box motors, "Blimps", "'Hollywood" cars, Tower cars, both electric and diesel powered long freight trains of PFE reefers and tank cars plus long hikes to Mount Lowe quickly made him a life long fan.

His first train set was from A.C. Gilbert, an American Flyer Alco PA-1 Silver Comet freight train. The following year he acquired the American Flyer Union Pacific 4-8-4 steam engine. One day he discovered HO scale at the local hobby shop with prices that enough lawn mowing and car washing could allow him to begin purchases. An as you can surmise, mat board building kits, brass street cars, and plastic engines and cars began to accumulate.

After returning from his tour in the U.S. Army, a membership in Orange Empire Railway Museum became a fine way to work on full size models and learn the building trade, machine shop, paint shop and wood shop practices. These experiences helped him in scale model building and provided an excellent way of using leisure time.

The chance to buy a large portion of what was formerly E. Suydam & Co. came about and he started Alpine Division Scale Models (ADSM) in 1996. He felt that there still was a need for craft model kits in the model railroading hobby and he wanted to improve the mat board and wood kits and update the corrugated steel buildings with the technology acquired over the past twenty years.

Orange Vista Traction Products (a division of ADSM) was formed in 1997 when the quality line of solid brass overhead catenary poles, formerly manufactured by E. Suydam, became available. As in the case of the mat board and corrugated steel buildings, improvements in technology allowed Michael to make improvements to then traction staples. As a result, a reliable source of these poles will be available to traction modelers,

It's B a a a a ck!. The Innovator Line of excellent walk around throttles was purchased recently from ITTC and returned to the market with quite a bang. Orders for the HO scale Innovator 3500 and the designed for N scale Innovator 1400 continue to arrive and the units are delivered as soon as built and tested. Both throttles have been the subject of outstanding reviews in Model Railroader, Model Railroading and other hobby magazines.

Michael S. De Ghetto, the owner of Alpine Division Scale Models, will continue to expand with new products and to improve existing products so that your model railroading experience will continue to be a rewarding and enjoyable one.