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| John with NHRR coal scoop in hand, just like when he was a teen-ager firing the Valley Local |
I've been dreading posting this ever since I heard the news. My friend John Wallace passed away on February 4th at the ripe old age of 95, but still much too soon for me. Regular readers of The Valley Local know John Wallace as the person almost single-handedly responsible for this entire Valley Line project.
John grew up with his grandparents just a few houses away from the New Haven Railroad's Valley Branch in Wethersfield, CT and as a young man he would often ride in the engine with the crew. Later, as a teenager, he'd often fire the local - and he even brought along his camera.
He shared his memories of railroading along the Valley Line, as well as his many photos, in a two-part series in the NHRHTA's Shoreliner magazine - and it's there where I first "met" him. His descriptions of local operations in the lower Connecticut River valley were vivid and so well illustrated that they became a compelling subject for a model railroad - which I started to build, based on his articles.
I'm not even sure how I first got to meet him in person. It was likely through a mutual friend - Max Miller - who had been attending our Thursday night volunteer group cataloging photos for the NHRHTA. But that meeting started a collaboration that lasted until his recent passing.
Over the next couple of years, our correspondence filled many pages - then many file folders - as I collected more and more research on the line we both loved. Sometimes one of my questions would spark a memory that he hadn't thought of in over seven decades, and sometimes his memory prompted some frustrating changes to the layout I was building. But I was always impressed with how sharp he was and how detailed his recollections were.
Case in point - and some of you know this story since it's a favorite of mine that I've repeated often...
Based on John's articles and our emailing back and forth, I was well along in building an HO scale version of the Valley Line, starting in John's home town of Wethersfield. I was so excited to show him my progress, so one volunteer night I had him come down to the basement to check on my progress. He had a lot of nice things to say about how Wethersfield was progressing, but one thing puzzled him. "What era are you modeling again?" he asked. "Circa 1948, around the time you graduated high school. That's when you took the most photos, after all" I replied.
"Well then, why do you have that long passing siding by the station?"
"Because that's what the Sanborn track map shows, and I figured I'd just replicate the map."
"Ah, but that passing siding was taken out in the late 1930s after passenger service ended."
Suffice it to say, the passing siding was removed in time for his next visit :^)
Although not a modeler himself, he "got" what I was doing and admired my attention to detail - and my wanting to get things "right." He often mentioned visiting my layout was like having a time machine back to his high school days. I can't imagine receiving a higher compliment.
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| John operating during one of my first operating sessions |
And I have to say, one of my proudest moments during this entire project was when I was able to hand John a throttle and he was able to operate the Valley Local, move for move, just as he had described the typical "Day in the Life" in his article - albeit in HO scale and <ahem> just a while after his teenage years.
Another huge highlight of our collaboration was when I was able to have him "visit" the house he grew up in, located (close to) where it was actually located in real life. Which actually leads to another cool story . . .
As I mentioned, John grew up in Wethersfield and graduated from Wethersfield High School in 1948. Although he didn't know him, Dave Messer was just a few years behind him in age. Dave moved to Pennsylvania and later became a pretty prolific model railroader and author. I met him through mutual model railroad friends when he discovered that I was modeling his home town...
Long story short, I had a photo of John's childhood home that he'd taken in the summer of '48 and sent it to Dave to see if he could build a model of it, which he did (and you can see the result in the photo above). But the COOL thing was that John and Dave met in the HO scale version of Wethersfield and discovered - decades after being so close but never having their paths cross - that they had lots of friends in common. John often mentioned how much fun it was reminiscing with Dave until he passed in 2020.
I have hundreds more memories I could share - from our shared love of cycling, to the fact that he was into flight simulators well into his 90s (he had been a pilot at one time), to his ending up in the hospital for trying to bunny hop a curb with his bike - when he was in his 80s(!). Our friendship ended up going well beyond the Valley Line project, but it was our shared love of the line that got us started - and I ended up with the great privilege of knowing and being friends with a truly remarkable man.
Rest well, my friend, knowing you will be sorely missed by all who had the honor of knowing you.
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I touched on only a few of the amazing things John did - the ones I knew most about. But his obit includes a lot more and gives you an even fuller picture of his amazing life.
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