Tribute to 1:1 Engineer Ed

Greetings All,

It's with a very heavy heart that I report today the passing of 1:1 Engineer Ed. Double E was a great American, family man, friend and train buddy. He served his country in war time, was a devoted husband and father and enjoyed the model railroading hobby since his father introduced him and his brother to their first Lionel trains. 

Ed never lost his love for O scale trains and was a very accomplished modeler who loved nothing more than having his grandson visit and put his Hoschton Railway Company thru the paces that only a small child can. As Ed put his layout back together after his grandson's operating sessions he never lost his beaming smile from sharing the hobby with his grandson. I would get notification from Ed that he was putting blocks on the throttles of his Z-1 controllers to limit the speed of the trains as his grandson enjoyed running the layout at warp speed. The after action report usually included a casualty report that included a few dinosaurs that roamed the layout when the little guy visited.

E.E. was a frequent visitor to the N.Y.C.T.L. and during our two person op sessions he would often look at me with a smile and state "it should be illegal to be having this much fun!". Our ops session were all about fun and we had a lot of it. 1:1 Engineer Ed and I moved a lot of freight cars, shared stories, collaborated on projects and inspired each other to be better modelers and have more fun doing so. We had some good road trips visiting other layouts and attending Train Shows. Ed always found several good deals and left struggling with a bunch of big O scale boxes. Both my wife and I looked forward to his visits and he is greatly missed. 

Here's 1:1 Engineer Ed working the Empire Belt's North Side Yard in August 2017.

1/87th scale Engineer Ed wears the brown shirt based on 1:1 E.E.'s love for the Pennsylvania RR. Here he his touting the merits of the high horsepower GE U Boats to 1/87th scale Big Mike in P.C.C.M. 48.

More recently 1:1 Engineer Ed developed a strong liking for the New Haven RR spurred on by a gift of a New Haven EF-4 from his late brother. Double E changed the colors of his freelanced Hoschton Railway to resemble the NH's rolling stock. Here's 1/87th scale EE with a newly painted HR 50' double door RBL.

Ed was a big fan of the virtual ops or Penn Central Car Movements even though he never really liked the Penn Central. Ed was in the process of altering his layout to be more involved in the virtual ops before his health took a turn for the worse. We were fortunate to have Ed participate in P.C.C.M. 42 and showcase his newly painted Penn Central coal hoppers.

Always on the lookout for more train projects here's Ed loading up with goodies at an Atlanta area Train Show in January 2018. That's me to the right and our friend and fellow modeler Matt Burton from Chattanooga on the left.

Double E was also a huge fan of coal trains and would often request to run coal trains when visiting the N.Y.C.T.L. Ed had many friends within the hobby and was kind enough to arrange a tour for us at the beautiful Tuscarora RR O scale layout in February 2017. Here's Double E with the camera taking a picture of what else, a coal train.

Engineer Ed cataloged some of his model railroading projects and adventures on his blog: http://hoschtonrr.blogspot.com/ He had a beautiful train collection and layout and always said everything would be left for his grandson who had so much fun with his grandpa visiting the layout and running the trains.

Rest in peace Ed. If Heaven has a train layout I'll know where to find you.