Williams Scale GG1 Upgrade to DCS

Guns & Marty F,

   You guys were never young!  Of course my daughter actually did what to know if I used slate to write on when I was a kid.   I told her yes but before that we drew on the cave walls to communicate, Geometry was easier before modern math however.

PCRR/Dave

Life was indeed a "lark" , Marty, each time my family took me to Willow Grove Park, and being a kid into model trains as I was, stopping at Jenkintown Hobby on the way to or from the park was an added treat! You didn't mentioned whether you were into model railroading while growing up but if you were maybe you bought trains from Broadbent's Trains on 2nd Street Pike in Southampton? As for Butch's Auction, I wonder how many times we might have crossed paths there. Living less than a mile from Butch's, my pals and I would bicycle there a few times a week. (That's when we weren't biking across the Poquessing Creek to The Byberry farmlands to watch from a distance prison guards supervising inmates who were brought there during the summer to tend the crops grown for the adjacent Byberry State Mental Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard.

I remember too going with my dad to watch the planes at the former Willow Grove Naval Air Station. An even bigger unforgetable thrill was the few times he got me in to NADC, the Naval Air Defense facility at Johnsville where he worked as a civilian engineer in the centrifuge building when our country's first test pilot astronauts trained there getting themselves into shape preparing for their early Freedom and later Mercury missions. I certainly was awestruck meeting those space heroes every boy dreamed of someday emulating.

Btw,m never had a hoagie from Luigi's but I couldn't get enough of the pizza hoagies from Tony & Pete's across from the Andulusia Drive-In.

Hopefully we can meet at a future York, Marty, and talk o gauge and maybe even reminisce about our mutual environs as kids living in the 50's to 70's in beautiful southeastern Pennsylvania.

Kenn, aka ogaugeguy

There is a Williams 74407 (Brunswick 5 stripe) on the bay now.  I may just put in a bid while I'm waiting for a Tuscan 5 stripe to show up.  If I win, a Tuscan 5 stripe will surely show up in a day or so.  Anyone know what vintage the 74407 is?  I've found WBB model numbers back to 2010 and a few Williams before Bachmann numbers like GG-101, but have not been able to determine vintage of numbers like 74407 and 74408.

The 5 gold stripe on Brunswick Green was the original scheme designed by Raymond Loewy.  Tuscan with 5 gold was applied to a few G's around 1952, used primarily to pull the the stainless streamlined Congressional, etc.  Around 1955 a simplified single yellow stripe scheme began to be applied when convenient to service.  Some 5 stripers lasted into the 60's.

Sure wish I had been around when those blowout William's G's were offered.  All I have is one of their cabs, which is sitting on an MTH chassis with pans from the same.  Like Marty says, the pans are the same and fit right on. 

Bruce

I love your Santa Fe G motor.

Ogauge guy, when we lived on Davisville road, the planes from Johnsville came right over our house coming and going.  I fell in love with the P2-V Neptune.  Little did I realize a few years later I would be working on those big R-3350 engines.   I have been in the centrifuge building on a Veterans day open house while I was in the Navy.  My Mother has many pictures of us at the park in the 50s.  Next time I am in Florida I will grab some and copy you.  Broadbent's, many times.  PA is the best.

Gentlemen,

   Just be glad you were not drafted into the US Army in the Viet Nam era, and had to ride behind the big GG1's in the old passenger cars the US Army used for Military personnel transport.  The train took us from Harrisburg to the stop just outside FT Dix NJ, it was the most memorable train ride of my life, as nervous as I was at the time.  A lot of Pa drafted men never road that train back home in that Viet Nam era, I knew some of them well.  The big GG1's are all retired now, the old Military Train Cars gone forever, I was one of the lucky draftees who survived an era of what my military buddies called, the GG1 Ghost Trains.  There are times when I look at a GG1, even on my Lionel FasTrack, that time stands still.  As I run my big GG1 Engines & Military transport rolling stock at Christmas time, I often remember those Military men who made it possible, thru the ages, for me to do so.  Especially those men that were drafted with me, accompanied me to Fort Dix, NJ, Fort Deven's Mass, Fort Brag, NC and Viet Nam, never getting to ride the Big Train home.

Thank you gentlemen, I never forget the freedom you have provided for my family and our country.

PCRR/Dave