Bill Wolfer Tribute: What hobby related stories can you share?

I never met Bill. I think he may have passed before I got interested in O scale, which was some 20 odd years back. He was a 1996 inductee into the O Scale hall of fame, and the bio there tells about him:

 https://oscalekings.org/WP/hall-of-fame/

Once on the site, click on 'San Antonio 1996' at right.

Simon

@Simon Winter posted:

I never met Bill. I think he may have passed before I got interested in O scale, which was some 20 odd years back. He was a 1996 inductee into the O Scale hall of fame, and the bio there tells about him:

 https://oscalekings.org/WP/hall-of-fame/

Once on the site, click on 'San Antonio 1996' at right.

Simon

Thanks, that was interesting.  

I remember Bill from the many March O Scale Meets that he attended here in Chicago.  He was a very nice man, and ranks up there with the likes of fFank Schmidt, John Clemons, and John Peppers.    He is missed at these shows.

On Sep. 5, 1973, I went to his house at 704 Pecan Dr. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and bought 1 of his E-44 electrics unpainted for $370.   He had been charging $410 for the painted version, but had already stopped making them.  He told me that he made 50, 2 pilot modes, and 4 runs of 12 at a time.  Why 12?  Some of the ready made parts were sold by the dozen.   Unless specified by the purchase, the painted versions were given different low numbers, and my choice of PRR 4444 had not been used.  On Jul. 5, 2020, I bought PC 4431 from Trainz for $525.66 including tax and shipping.  Who was the original owner?

His next loco was the ex-Great Northern electric in its Pennsylvania RR FF-2 configuration, estimated at about $710.  After that, he contemplated a GG-1 "as it should be made".

He had an 0-scale layout that was designed to come apart in section when he moved somewhere else, which probably happened by 1982.

I remember another visitor in early 1974 trying to arrange a trade of a Joe Fisher passenger car and a Central Locomotive Works GP Diesel, saying that they were worth about the same.   Bill refused, explaining that he was a businessman or dealer, and had to make a profit on every transaction.

I met Bill in Philadelphia out at his house around 1977. I was new to O-scale and was a little overcome by the amount of equipment he had for sale. All I had at the time was an A-B-A set of ALCo passenger units from Bob Smith that were in the process of assembly. I didn't buy anything from Bill that afternoon, but we became friends and over subsequent years I did acquire one of his GG1's, an FF-2, and an E-44, along with a set of B&O passenger cars. Later on, Bill moved to California and on one memorable occasion I met up with him and his old friend John (?) at an O-Scale West meet in the Bay Area, where I had driven from Arizona. I offered them a ride back to Los Angeles (not sure how they got to the meet to begin with) and we had a great trip, stopping at Anderson's for their special pea soup at Bill's insistence. We spent the night there and then went on to Los Angeles the next day via Tehachapi Loop, ultimately making our way over to Long Beach to visit the Queen Mary. Bill had been a detective on the Philadelphia police force, if I'm not mistaken. He and John had all sorts of stories about serving together in Europe during WWII -- I guess some of the stories were even true (many of them involved eating excellent meals in France). I remember the sectional layout, which had a lot of PRR equipment, of course. Bill had a device for rolling Pullman-style corrugations into sheet metal for passenger car sides, which Bill then finished with wood roofs and floors (at least, that was the construction method for my B&O cars). I had been living in Baltimore when I met Bill (hence my B&O interest), but had no place for a layout until some years later. Bill was a great character and I really enjoyed my acquaintance with him. Bill's vertical motor drive with Delrin chain to adjacent axles was also used on the GN Y-1 that Custom Brass imported. I feel lucky to have met and been friends with Bill (and also men like Bob Smith, Ed Duddy, Doug Cockerham,  John Smith, John Clemons, and Mr. Crissi [?] who owned The Electric Shop and produced some beautiful kits for NYC electrics). All these guys greatly enriched my experience with O-scale trains.

@B Smith posted:

I feel lucky to have met and been friends with Bill (and also men like Bob Smith, Ed Duddy, Doug Cockerham,  John Smith, John Clemons, and Mr. Crissi [?] who owned The Electric Shop and produced some beautiful kits for NYC electrics). All these guys greatly enriched my experience with O-scale trains.

If you take the time to look in the "O Scale Hall of Fame", you will find many of the names Mr. Smith mentions.

Simon

Just an addendum to this string I thought some of you might appreciate this.  About a year ago some passenger cars were listed on Ebay attributed to Bill Wolfer as builder and I managed to land one. I have a 60-70’s era PRR/PC commuter train project underway and this one looked like a good fit likewise the same ubiquitous Walthers #9175 P70FAR. so really a no brainer. Plus, I was curious about his work like this, finish quality etc. having associated him primarily with the CB/NJ etc axis of brass models.

I was truly delighted with the model though, has a lot of extra details, more complete than a lot of the second-hand Walthers Passenger car builds one sees these days, as well as some of my own cars.

Truck chains, nicely applied MHP diaphragms, interior with passengers and crew, prototype floor plan, full roof lighting albeit with the old Walther tube lights powered from nicely done (as in no flicker) sprung pick-ups. I'm sure the Walther's folks would've approved of this, and probably wished everyone had done it the same way.

The working marker lights were happy bonus too. The car's hardly fine scale but it's pretty darn good. I don't why he elected to splice the the roof ends like this though, he did it on at least cars two other cars that were concurrently listed with this one. The typical kit supplied roof had plenty of "meat" on the ends to get the correct taper for the FAR style modernized roof.

Decent underbody detail as well, and sure enough his own small label with a 1965 build date next to the generator.

It's a tad on the heavy side due to the volume of white metal parts employed, the glazing is getting pretty wavy too and it has an older lettering set than my period but it works well with the rest of the cars in my "Long Branch" commuter so I'm leaving it as is.

One Wolfer trademark that no one has mentioned is that he would include a large rabbit "passenger" in some of his customers cars.

Simon