Hi, Had a rather busy day yesterday with a visit from Larry Shughart and Marty Schlenker and his son, Conrad.
Larry builds real railroads all over the world, is presently building a short line in Jamaica, but is home for a holiday break. His Brother-in-Law, Marty, is Assistant Vice President - Service Design at BNSF Railway Company, Marty's son Conrad, age 7, is the real railroader, probably knows more about all this stuff than any of us. Larry, Marty and Conrad were at the Williams Grove Steam engine Festival this past weekend and Uncle Larry said to Conrad, that that 0-6-0 is like the one he has on his layout. Conrad promptly replied, "No its not, it doesn't have an eccentric valve on it." http://www.wghsea.org/consignment-sale-2012 Larry lives in Jacksonville, Florida and built a Barn to house his antique autos and his trains in, Larry relieved me of all my train magazines dating back to 1960 for his collection. I feel so relieved to have moved the magazines to a good home, as like all of us old timers, we sure did value them. Well, anyway, we ran trains last night and at first all the bad stuff showed itself, but in time we had two trains running in harmony on the mainline as we toured the balance of the Jefferson Central and ignored the trains for at least an hour, as they ran by themselves without incident. But it did show weaknesses and I still have a lot of work to do on the pike. Larry was disappointed that I've been changing over my pike to the Reading company. I explained that it is still the Jefferson Central but owned and operated by the Reading Company. By 9:30 PM I was exhausted and we broke up the party. Man, I had a long day and I am olde! "S"ee ya, Bill (Fraley)
