My brother, Bill Losse passed away yesterday. I’m the youngest of six kids and he was number two in birth order. He was responsible for introducing me to most of what I enjoy in life.
He put a camera in my hands when I was five. He let me ride along in the car while he went out to chase trains. He introduced me to a lot of the locations that I would travel to later when I would go out on my own adventures. He encouraged me to build models, first with airplanes and later with trains.
The image I posted is from the early 80’s. We were trackside up on the former NYC along the Hudson River to photograph the Amtrak FL9’s.
This is the memory of my brother I keep going back to today. I will miss him.
John Dunn who most know as one of the promoters of the Strasburg O Scale Shows died peacefully at home on Friday Dec 12th after battling several serious health issues over the past month.
I’ve known John for over 20 years, he was a friend. If you ever attended a show or event with John you would have seen, John knew everybody. I was always amazed how many people that knew him and greeted him warmly. Not only did he know them, but he always remembered their names and had stories to tell about them. And John was a very good story teller.
I had the pleasure of driving to the Chicago Show a couple of times with John. He was one of the most upbeat people I’ve ever met. When it came to trains, John liked them all, HO, O Scale, Lionel, and prototype trains. They all brought out the little kid in him.
The above image was taken at Chicago. It was the Saturday late in the afternoon. After a good day of buying and selling, I asked John if he found everything he was hoping to see at the show? John mentioned that he was hoping to see an Overland Ferdinand Magellan Presidential Car. I smiled and told him to turn around, there was one on the table behind us. This was John’s reaction to opening the box to examine the car.
Dave was the promoter of the “Eastern O Scalers” series of train shows. Under his guidance it expanded from a small show in Easton, PA, to three shows a year, a Spring and Fall show in Wind Gap, PA and the August show in Denver, PA. Dave also was a dealer for Weaver Models, Sunset 3rd Rail and others. In retirement, he moved to Virginia to be near his family.
For those that didn’t know, he was a former long-time member of the Cherry Valley Model RR Club. That was where I met him.
Yesterday, I attended my second TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet (aka York). I had always thought that as a Proto48’er that these shows held little to no interest for me. I can say, I was wrong. While there are very few 2 rail O Scale models on the tables, there are some. I came home with two “new to me” brass cars from both the Spring show and now the Fall show.
In addition there were some building manufactures there, tool suppliers and also people you haven’t seen in ages. One them was Robbie Kimmey, who I used to see over at Fran Pfiel’s house. It was really nice catching up after almost 20 years. Robbie is shown here with John Dunn.
The York show is big and there are many halls. Below was just one hall and I was standing about half way inside the hall.
Altoona Model Works was there displaying their model offerings. I always liked their Brewery complex model.
As I said there were 2 rail models in the show. Here is an image within the Trainz display. Nothing on the table for a Reading modeler, but still great to see nice 2 rail models being offered for sale at what I always thought was a 3 rail tinplate show.
After walking around the show it was nice to go out for a nice dinner at the local Hoss’s Steak and Sea House. Walking into the lobby you are quickly reminded that we are in York, PA, the home of the Harley Davidson assembly plant.
Today, the October Strasburg O Scale Show was held. Attendance on both sides of the tables seemed good. Some of the usual faces that were not there in August were there today. I was pleased to see a number of new faces in the room.
There were a number of fine models in the room. I had been looking for one of the Pacific Limited C&O/NKP 1932 ARA boxcar for a number of years. Since I found one last year, this was the third show I’ve been to this year with one on the table.
There wasn’t as much for a Reading modeler, and even less for a Proto48 modeler. But there were plenty of fine models available in the room.
Rich also held the show auction to benefit the Fire House again this year. They managed to raise close to $1200 for the Fire House by auctioning off four items.
It was a good show, I had the chance to talk with a number of folks from various parts of the country and also buy and sell some models. It was a fun day even though the rain made it an adventure to get stuff in and out of the show. Hard to believe we have to wait all Winter now for another Strasburg Show.
This morning I was studying diagrams and photos to try to see if I could find a simpler way to construct one of the Reading signature covered hopper cars, the LOb. I was looking to see if I was missing an option of a way to build them.
I opened one of the scans of a Reading Company builder’s photo of the LOb. When I noticed how banged up the ribs were. The ribs were reclaimed for 18 year old 70 ton quad hopper from the HTl and HTn classes. So they were not new. But look at the dents in the ribs.
Then I noticed a couple of things that made me laugh a little.
First, check out the bottom of the closest rib, it’s not cut square to the side of the car.
Next, check out how the board in the tack board on the frame is larger than the hold downs on either side. Would we consider rebuilding those details if it came out looking like that? Most of us would.
Next, look at the class stenciled on the car, “LOb”. The “B” is slightly lower than the “LO”. Even the stenciled built date doesn’t exactly line up level. As O scalers, we do not have as many options for decals as the smaller scales do. We often have to letter a car from bits and pieces of decal sets for different cars. Splicing a class together is common. I know I would have kept fussing with this one to make it line up better.
On Saturday, the August Strasburg O Scale Show was held. Attendance on both sides of the tables seemed to be down a little. Some of the usual faces we see were not there, but there were a number of new faces in the room. There were even some younger people in the room.
After the show I had a conversation with Rich Yoder about attendance. Rich mentioned that attendance was actually up over the April show. He mentioned that even though a number of the regulars were not at the show, there were enough new attendees to actually increase the number of people through the door.
Rich Yoder had a some trucks on his table. The inventory is dwindling, if you need something from him don’t wait. He might already be sold out. He did have a few Proto48 trucks on the table but they are in very short supply.
I did get the chance to see and meet a new vendor at the show. Chris Coarse of Conowingo Models was there with his line of kits on display. It was a pleasure to meet him at the show and see a nice new line of models entering the O Scale market.
Bob Heil was there representing Sunset and golden gate Depot at the show. He had some B&O models that were made from older Mac Shop kits but they represent the B&O cars that Golden Gate is about to import.
The car on the top is a Golden Gate car from a previous run. Bob mentioned that these are about to go into production.
The former Chooch Ultra Scale II building and freight car kits are returning to production. Hangman Creek Diorama Company acquired the rights to these fantastic kits and the line of detail parts. The new owners are Jess Dozier and Lisa Lund.
The injection molded plastic parts from the old stock are on their website now. They say they will have the parts back into production sometime in August.
The building kits and freight car car kits will be later in the year. The Facebook post states, “I expect to be in production and release kits progressively by Jan 2024!!!”
I will admit to looking at what hits the auction site. I have picked up a few things there over the years. Ok, more than I want to admit to, but this auction this week really amazes me. A Golden Gate Depot PRR 10-6 Pullman Factory painted sold for $1731.00.
Someone REALLY WANTED this one. I hope they don’t change their modeling focus in a year or two and try to sell it for this price.
We have all watched auctions that the seller set too high a starting price for something and then it sits on the auction site for months while everyone waits for the seller to lower the price. We all also know folks that have no patience and go after some of that overpriced stuff just because they think they may never see another one and they have to have THAT one.
This one started at a reasonable price of $100. I know I watched it with the thought of turning it into something other than PRR if it stayed low enough. It didn’t.
To put this into context, the new B&O 10-6 Pullmans that Golden Gate Depot has on their website currently are priced at $349 each.
This was not an accident. There were 29 bids on this car. I don’t get it. It’s not a set of cars. It was ONE car!
I’m happy for the seller, we all know the background in the images. Here are some of the images of the car from the auction.
Today, I attended the TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet. So you might ask, what is a Proto48 modeler doing at a TCA Train Meet? Truth is, I was having fun.
The size of the show is beyond belief. One of the halls was bigger than most of the train shows I have attended, and there were 5 different halls. The biggest surprise of the day was how important the shuttle bus running between the halls actually was.
Now in reality, the amount of 2-rail models in the halls is probably closer to that of a small club show. And we won’t talk about the amount of Proto48 in the halls, none. The amount of 1/4 inch to the foot models was a different story.
There was a lot of early Lionel and Standard Gauge throughout the show. I didn’t experience any of those models growing up and they hold little interest to me, but they did to a lot of people attending.
Before the show, I wanted to go looking for building models and scenery materials for the layout. It turned out that I did learn more about some of the building models currently available that might work on the layout. And I did find some scale 2-rail scale models at very good prices.
There was some O Scale brass mixed throughout the show, but you mostly had to look very closely for it. What comes to mind was a few USH steam locomotives, some early Sunset steam and a pair of Custom Brass PRR MP54’s. There were a few brass freight cars throughout the show and one vendor had some PSC, Overland and a couple of Pacific Limited cars.
I’m trying now to have better focus and staying away from some of the nice modern prototype offerings. You can’t model everything. But there were a lot of ’70’s and ’80’s prototypes there at very good pricing just calling out to be converted to 2-rail or proto48.
I was very surprised by how much S Scale and American flyer I saw at the show. I dipped my toe into the S Scale waters about twenty years ago, but decided that wasn’t my path. It was difficult to resist some of the S scale models in the show. Even some that I have said to myself, if I were to find them, I’d purchase them.
I attended the show with John Dunn, he mentioned during the day that it was his 52 year of attended the show. It was my first time attending.
I can say the energy of the show was contagious. I see why he has attended the last 52 years. John was also great to attend the show with, as he kept explaining what I was seeing on some of the tables.
If I had gone to this show looking specifically for just 2-rail or Proto48 models, I might have been disappointed. I went with an open mind, looking for models and ideas for the layout. I found that many times over and had a great day. Now, I’m looking forward to the October Meet.
