Marie sent this email about Ron Brown(Steam in the Garden owner/editor).
Just want to let you know that we brought Ron home from the hospital yesterday to pass from this life. Hospice is working with us.
Marie
He sure was a nice guy and helped me out a lot in live steam.
Jerry
Sad, Sad, Sad news, give them our sympathies if you would Jerry. Thanks Regal
I am so sad to hear this news.
It was Ron who, as a no cost favour to me, very kindly arranged for a friend of his to write the first operating programs for both the RCS battery R/C systems and the RCS Live Steam R/C system.
These programs enabled RCS to get established on a firm basis in this industry.
I will be forever in his debt.
My sincere best wishes to Ron and his family at this sad time.
Sad day as most of the old time model railroad icons are gone. I would like to think they will remain in all of our thoughts for a long long time. Toot toot toot
TOF in Lost Wages
I posted already on the other forum where I saw the notice first.
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
As you all probably know by now, Ron passed away Sunday morning 3OCT10. A funeral service is to be held on Thursday 7 Oct 10 followed with a Memorial Steam Up at Ron’s railroad. Great way to honor a fine gentleman and advocate of small steam dragons.
Noel
Noel - if you are going, please fire up a loco for me. If not, please ask somebody who is.
I’ll be finger-burning in my backyard on thursday in memory of a fine man who loved trains.
Pretty good epitaph, that, doncha think?
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
I don’t think I knew much, if anything about Ron, but I most heartedly agree with a ‘live steam’ run at his home as a most fitting tribute to him.
I don’t run live steam but a leccy ‘steam’ loco is better than none. So I will run a ‘special’ here on Thursday afternoon - weather permitting.
Tac
I will ask Tom Bowdler who I know will be going. Sadly I cannot make it. I think it is a great idea and a great epitaph. Hope someone will do it for me someday.
BTW I hope to meet you someday. You sound a lot like me. A hardnose military man who brooks no nonsense.
Noel
TAC
Tom has informed me that he will be glad to steam a loco for you in memory of Ron. Hope some pics show up.
Noel
Noel, many thanks for that. Meanwhile, for the last hour or so over here in v.rural East Anglia I’ve been having a small and select [very select - there’s only me and my vulture] steam-up.
Ron would have been happy to know that I steamed two Shays [one in each direction] with a whole pile of log cars and a few home-built work cars, as well as the ‘Earl’, named after our lobster.
I’ve also just put the fan on the stack of my Royal Hudson, and it will no doubt be hauling the one and only car I have around my little track some time soon.
God Bless, Ron - we never met, but I sure knew about you and all you did for the furtheration of steam in the garden.
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
TAC
That was a fine tribute to Ron. I am more than sure he enjoyed it.
Noel
Noel, this has been a really bad year here in yUK as well as the US. First we lost John Powers, a good friend to his many customers through his store, Hobbybahn, after a blessedly short time of suffering a brain tumour, and then, a month later, Bill Pinch of Bay Models, another stalwart figure in LS trains here in UK. Donald Pearse, founder of Pearse Live Steam and lovcomotive designer par excellence, also arrived at the terminus recently, and left a lasting legacy with every AccuCraft ‘Countess’ that boils water.
Thankfully, as we see from a few of the posts up front, there are some returnees, coming back into our hobby after one kind of trouble or another, and I welcome them back with all my heart into our international brotherhood.
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
For some pictures of the Michigan Small Scale Live Steamers Ron Brown Memorial SteamUp, held at Bob Weltyk’s house on October 7, 2010, click Here.
TAC,
This has been a rough October and year. I now learn we have lost David Cooper. The ranks are thinning rapidly…sigh.
Noel
Noel, you beat me to it. David Cooper just fell over and died, it seemed, without any warning of any kind. His son will be carrying on the coal-fired conversion work, I’m told.
All very sad.
Three in a week is three too many.
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
TAC
Just read your note on MLS about Jim Stapleton’s fall NG meet. He is serious. Show up and we Narrow Gaugers will yeild the ROW to your Royal Hudson any time. I do not belong to MLS anymore. Just far too much bells and whistles to post pictures etc. Anyhow, please joing us now or someday. We have a number of your fellow countrymen show each meet. Good fellowship, good food and good times. You may, however, have to bring your own taste in beer…LOL
Noel
Noel, thanks for the call. You’ll find that me and my family are a bit like vampires, we have to be invited in. And then, well, you know the rest of the story. However, just dropping in is not my style, especially after a 3000 mile ‘bus-ride’.
Thanks for the thought, though, it’s much appreciated, and shows that even crusty old farts like me have a place to go somewhere apart from Fred’s and Richard’s.
Take care
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund
Terry,
“Thanks for the thought, though, it’s much appreciated, and shows that even crusty old farts like me have a place to go somewhere apart from Fred’s and Richard’s.”
You’re welcome at our gathering, we will even pick you and Iggy up at the light rail station. Arrive on the 3rd, a Wednesday, and we’ll have time to show you the area, including AndyC’s.
Hey, guys, your generosity overwhelms me, but sadly, I’m in a kind of cleft chicken in the manger situation here. Y’see, when I’m over in Canada, it’s easy and cheap to drop on down to you guys in VA and so on.
But when I’m over in UK, that’s a different story.
It costs me over four times more to get over to VA from UK than it does to get from Tronna to Portland OR.
You’ll have to have as much fun as you can without me and the vulture. Hey, you’ll manage just fine.
tac
www.ovgrs.org
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund