He first became interested in railroads as a small child, when his mother would take him to watch the trains at the Long Island Rail Road stations at Queens Village and Bellerose.

[1] He attended Huntington High School, graduating in 1957, and studied advertising design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1961.

He served in the Army Signal Corps, stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia, from September, 1961 to January, 1962, when he was given a medical discharge because of a diabetic condition.

Other founding members included Winfield S. Boerckel, F. Rodney Dirkes, Harold Fagerberg, Arthur J. Huneke and Robert Michel.

Ziel was also the founder and first president of the Steam Locomotive 39 Preservation Fund, which was responsible for refurbishing LIRR Engine #39 and moving it from the Carriage House Museum in Stony Brook to a new location in Riverhead.