Okay, the important part first… We keep Allan’s memory alive with the Mik Challenge every year. But does anyone remember him? I was chatting with him either the night before, or a couple days before. We were talking about finding parts to build a Lombard for our layouts.
But, what I remember (and honestly, miss the most) was the stories of his Allegheny Valley, and the crafty & ingenious designs he used to put out. I had always wanted to pull as much of his stuff as possible and craft a memorial, but like too often happens, life got in the way and next thing I knew, his website/blog was gone. Does anyone remember his site? I’m hoping that if we get it right, we might get lucky and the Wayback Machine might have some (dare I hope for all?) of his stuff.
I came here tonight because I was crafting the caption for my cover image on facebook (a connie-based 2-8-0+0-8-2) for my fictional (A.G.E.) Appalachia Great Eastern, which was written into the history/backstory of my primary system, the Freedom Central. Part of AGE’s history linked all the narrow guage roads of Pennsylvania to the Erie roads in Cuba, NY, and linking them to Pittsburgh via Mik’s Allegheny Valley.
All this to scratch everyone’s noggins for any details they can rescue of his creation.
While I was reading back posts, I saw one thread about an LSC member who recently passed, and I thought, you know, its a shame we don’t have a large list of all the people who were here at one time or another. LSC is basically all that remains of MLS, LSC, the Aristo Forums. There were thousands of us over the last 20 years… I think one day I’d like to sit back in an easy chair, a tumbler of my fav bubbly, and raise a toast of all our friends who’ve taken their last ride on the long black train to the great-beyond.
-J.D.
and lift the restrictions for you by $21 bucks… as an incentive. 
