The Villages - September 2020 - 27

"(She) was down here on a Friday and was leaving on
Sunday and was trying to unload the house her uncle
owned," Crum said. "She had a wall full of nutcrackers
and other types of trains, and this train was sitting up
there, and she asked, 'Well what about this?' We told her
we'd find a good home for it. This sucker is heavy - I got it
home and had some of the guys come over and figure out
what to do, and that's when we had the idea to donate it.
"We offered it to the Lady Lake Historical Society, but
they said they don't have the facilities to store it," Best said.
When that plan fell through, Best recalled visiting the
Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History and
remembered the museum had a full-size version of the
locomotive on display.
"I started trying to get ahold of them back in April,"
Best said. "I called them on a Friday, and of course that
was the day they were shutting down for a month. It took
a couple weeks after that to finally get ahold of them, and
I sent them an email with everything I had, and they said
they'd be delighted to get (the replica)."
Best and Crum are waiting to donate the replica
until other members of the club have a chance to view
it at a meeting, but with club meetings on hold due to
quarantine, they still are not sure exactly when that will
be.
In the meantime, they have done some research on
the train and the artist who carved it, and they found an
article about the train in the April 13, 1975 edition of the
Reading Eagle newspaper from Reading, Pennsylvania.
The article mentions the person who carved and built
the train - Samuel G. Schealer - served in the Civil War,
then went on to work for Philadelphia & Reading Railway
after the war. Schealer eventually became an engineer,
and as such, had an intimate knowledge of all the moving
parts of the locomotive.
That knowledge is apparent in his wood carving -
many of the moving parts of the locomotive also move on
the replica and are still in pristine condition more than a
century later.
"These pieces were all hand-carved and handmade,"
Crum said. "The doors and windows open, it rolls - this
was a true artist who did this."
Best, Crum and other members of The Villages Model
Train Club are happy to be stewards of this piece of history
until it eventually moves on to display in the museum
in Kennesaw.

MAGAZINE

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The Villages - September 2020

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