My Jefferson Central has bee, with me since I started in model railroading
as an American Flyer train collector, setting up a 4x8 platform only at
Christmas time.
I was taught all this from my father who did the same with a Lionel and Marx
train sets back in the 1940's. Fortunately, he was still living in 1960 and
helped me set up my first Christmas platform for our son, Jeff, who at that
time was 4 years of age. It was at that time I joined a group that wanted to
start a train club, it was called THE CENTRAL PENNSLYVANIA S GAUGERS We had
a group of 30 some American Flyer modelers. We hosted the 1970 NESGA
Convention in Hershey, Pa.
Yes, I liked the AF trains, but I wanted more. One summer we had a joint
meeting with the then Delaware Valley S Gauger's (now, The Lehigh Valley S
Gauger's) and I met Frank Titman. That was it! S Scale was very limited in
those days and we "chopped" up an awful lot of AF equipment, much to the
chagrin of the AF purists and collectors.
One day I inventoried all of my remaining (unchopped) American Flyer trains
and totaled the price, gave a 25% discount and the first buyer bought
everything and paid cash. Since then I'm a very happy S Scale modeler. Not
unlike our friend Bob Nicholson, my model railroad runs all kinds [makes] of
equipment.
But I too had trouble with the freelancing of my model pike as the name
Jefferson Central didn't fit in all the time. Good friend Dick Karnes
suggested I use a prototype and then if you have an odd piece of equipment
you can name it whatever you like. Frank Titman always say's "The hell with
them, it's your model railroad, don't worry about it!". But I did take
Dick's advice, and shortly thereafter, The Reading Company bought out the
Jefferson Central and all seems well now. I have converted when applicable,
a lot of my equipment to the Reading company, following Frank's thinking,
and it's a lot of fun converting models over to the Reading.( Also at times
very challenging)
I do have many, Jefferson Central cabooses, but I also run Reading cabooses
too.
More importantly, I no longer have problems with what Andre call's
protolanced naming of equipment.
For those of you haven't have guessed it, The Jefferson Central is named
after our son, Jeff. (Jeff-Son)
I remain a very Happy S Scale modeler,
"S"incerely,
Bill Fraley
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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