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Got back around 7:45 last night – left Austin at 6:30 am. I thought about stopping in Lawrence and staying with my daughter’s family but wanted to sleep in my own bed again. I left Omaha Monday thinking I could stop in Enid or Oklahoma City and visit the RR museums but Sundays and Mondays are closed so I stayed in Mineral Wells and then hit the Pacific WW2 museum in Fredericksburg Tuesday and Wednesday. They sell you a 48 hour ticket which after spending 15” in the museum you can see why. I spent 5 hours the first day and 2 hours the next morning. This is the best museum I’ve ever been to – original B-25, F4F from the Pacific, PT boat, TMF torpedo plane, lots of beautiful ship models too (including one Enterprise carrier in 1/72 scale). Many video maps that explain the various naval and island battles which were quite complex. If you’re anywhere near central Texas try and visit. Fredericksburg has one wonderful German restaurants as well.
The meet as always was relaxed and by design, the schedule wasn’t packed with back to back presentations. This was due to Friday being the train trip and Georgetown RR visit and we decided attendees didn’t want to sit through numerous Power points.
Was great seeing old friends again and meeting new ones – which to me is what the whole thing is about. Bill Herbert, Jim Ogden, Pat Pritchett and I had a table of HO models on display. I think we’ve hit on a good formula for our meets after the success of the last three.
Tony Fey collection was on silent auction and I believe everything sold. The swap meet wasn’t as large as previous meets but the company store had the largest display I’d ever seen and was busy anytime it was open. Tony was made a life member due to his support of the Missouri Pacific Historical Society with articles and donating his MP collection to the Society before he passed away.
Kevin Love was also made life member given his past three years as president, finding an investment firm for our monies, setting up two annual meets, being the webmaster for MoPac.org, programming the company store, setting up eBay and PayPal for sales plus mailing out all the numerous Eagle back issue orders we get. Between all this he managed to restore a MP caboose.
Presentations were well attended with my favorite being A.T. Kotts I-GN ICC 1917 photos around the Austin mainline. A.T. donated several original freight and passenger painting diagrams from 1927 to the Missouri Pacific Historical Society as well as maps of the IGN.
Kevin closed the presentations Saturday night with his restoration of his wide vision caboose. It’s has to be the best, historically correct, restoration I’ve ever seen.
Board approved me moving ahead with our next book on the Missouri-Illinois RR which I have 1,500 photos to choose from plus M-I company documents.
Next year we are looking on meeting in Branson.
