Leo, Rupert, Dave and All-
Received BB #56 yesterday in middle Tennessee.
What a well-balanced, well-written, informative issue!!!
Leo, you are a primo working railroad author and historian!! I always admired the writings of the late Bob Janz and you are of the same ilk! Nice balance of people, places and physical plant!!!
Rupert…..you did a marvelous job of knitting together the “bits and pieces” of La Mothe and other iron car articles. It was enjoyable to read your text and relate it to the illustrations….you made the story clear to me even though I already “knew” of the pieces we explored in emails over the past years (going back maybe to 2012 or earlier???). Barring discovery of a goldmine of hidden records I think you have written the definitive history of the development of iron cars on the CB&Q. Thanks for the credits….it is always fun to work on finding puzzle pieces!!!
I also appreciated the article on Potter and Stone. I think it could serve as a template for covering other significant officers in Burlington Route history. Tying them into specific events and equipment is a good pattern for the Bulletin or Zephyr and avoids a dry biography of just the person.
I hope that others in the Society enjoyed this issue as much as I did because I’d like to see more of this style of articles. While we are the Burlington Route Historical Society we really don’t know the depths and extent the interests of the membership are for different aspects of the development of the railroad. This issue was a nice balance of recent (almost 50 years ago!!!) and earlier (140 years ago) history.
Charlie Vlk
It might be illuminating if those on the BRHS and CB&Q lists would share a brief statement of their range of interests in the CB&Q, C&S and FW&D. Here is mine…
My interests focus on system locomotives, cars, buildings and physical plant and especially the CB&Q in the Chicago area in all eras up to when Menk took over the CB&Q. I enjoy Model Railroading in N and 1.6” scale Live Steam but haven’t accomplished much in the way of modeling projects since my industry work tends to satisfy my need to create models (Hello, my name is Charlie Vlk and I am a struggling modeler!). I enjoy research and am fascinated by the role of the railroads in the development of modern organization and business practices and the CB&Q’s leadership in the industry.