I am a retired public relations consultant. For a decade, earlier in my career, I was chief public relations officer for Norfolk & Western Railway in Roanoke, VA, and for Southern Pacific, in San Francisco. Earlier, I covered the railroad industry as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where I got to know such rail executives as Benjamin W. Heineman (C&NW), Gus Aydelolott (D&RGW), Lou Menk (BN) and William Johnson (IC). At N&W, I worked with Jack Fishwick and Bob Claytor, and at SP with Rob Krebs and Benjamin Biaggini. I have had the privilege of riding in the cabs of both N&W 611 and the former SP 4449 while they were operating fan trips. I am modeling a fictitious midwestern railroad, the Ottawa & Northern Railway, set in Illinois and Wisconsin, along the Fox River Valley, in 1953. It is very loosely based on the Chicago Great Western, with elements of the D&RGW (since I grew up in Denver, CO) and Illinois Central. My current interest is developing the skills to scratch build rolling stock, locomotives and structures in brass, wood and styrene. The eagle image is the logo of the O&N Railway.
Welcome aboard, Lew. How long have you lived in Pasadena? I have been gone from California for 24 years and enjoying the rainy Pacific Northwest here in Oregon.
We moved to Pasadena about 30 years ago. When SP was acquired by Santa Fe Industries (which the ICC ultimately disapproved, leading to SP being "swallowed" by D&RGW before it went to UP) I was out of a job in San Francisco, and moved south to become head of the PR department for Southern California Edison. Settled in Pasadena because we love Craftsman-era architecture.
Hi Lew, Welcome. Glad to have you on board. Furthermore happy that you survived an enforced change in careers.
