I remember Larry fondly from several chatlists; he was cantankerous,
opinionated, and curmudgeonly but almost always right. And
he had a lifetime of devotion to model railroading and serious prototype
railroading experience from the transition era so many of us
favor. He had moved to Florida with his wife for the climate, but she died a
few years ago and he moved back to the Seattle area to
be near his daughter. I was never in a position to meet him, other than
through e-mail, but his death is a loss to us all. I still have a
set of his brass RS-3 replacement stanchions for the O scale Weaver model.
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
> For those interested in Larry or the history of S, I'm repoeting (with
> permission) David Hussey's note about him from the STMFC.
>
> "This discussion about Larry Jackman got me digging through my files. I first
> met Larry through Ed Ryan back in the late 1980's. Ed was working in the
> Seattle area and somehow had been introduced to Larry (I think it was through
> Bob Hundman of Mainline Modeler). I went up to see Ed and he took me to visit
> Larry. Talk about the mad professor/shade tree mechanic, his garage was full
> of "stuff"
> for making the parts he was selling under the Smokey Valley line. He had some
> attachment for his drill press that heated plastic pellets that were then
> squeezed into a mold that he just clamped in a mill vise. Very basic for
> small parts. He had several molds that were made from the 3M Tartan process
> that used a sintered metal powder to capture the detail off of a male master.
> Thru Ed we
> became friends.
>
> In 1989 Rail Power Products introduced their SD60 shell, and Larry had the
> late Joel Berling tool him a three window cab to convert the SD60 into a
> SD60M. Ed had moved back to Southern California and moved in with me. Larry
> asked Ed and I to build him a display model for the Houston NMRA Convention
> for his display.
>
> Later I wrote and article on the model that ran in the January 1990 issue of
> Mainline Modeler. Later that year I had scratch built a Dynamic Brake
> Section tomake a Phase II GP50 out of an Athearn GP50. At Larry's request I
> made drawings for the dynamic section that I sent to Larry in June 1990. He
> had Joel make the tooling for the dynamic and then also the Blomberg Type M
> truck side frame.
>
> Over the years we kept in touch and saw each other at shows, and he was
> always after me for other ideas that he could make. After he sold Smokey
> Valley to Bob Wright (Wright Track, who subsequently sold the Smokey Valley
> part of it to Larry Burt) there was a period that he could not compete. I
> think this is when he and his wife moved to Florida, and he got involved in S
> Scale stuff, and later
> back into HO with the switcher side frames. His connection with Joel was
> fruitful for Larry and the hobby. Joel was one of those master "behind the
> scenes" toolmakers who did projects for lots of small companies from Detail
> Associates, Smokey Valley, Des Plaines Hobbies, PBL, Hi Tech Details, Wright
> Track, and many others. He could work from sketches and photographs and
> produce quality molds. Joel passed away in 2006 not long after Gordon Cannon.
> Without Joel, Larry lost his toolmaker.
>
> I last saw him at one of the Cocoa Beach meets a few years ago, but he didn't
> spend much time as his wife was not doing well and he wanted to get back
> home. Many of you only know him from his stories and/or rants on the various
> lists but anyone who met him will remember him as someone with a lot of
> knowledge and a will to share it.
>
> Larry we (at least me) miss you.
>
> Regards
>
> David Hussey"
>
> Pieter E. Roos
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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