Author,
Aviator, Teacher, Freight Car Historian Richard Hendrickson departed this world
too soon for those of us left behind during the last week of June.
Richard in his
study, 2006, courtesy John Signor
I knew Richard
for over twenty five years, but did not know him well enough and was a fool for
not getting to know him better. Our first and last face to face encounters were
at Santa Fe conventions, the first in the late 80s where I was afraid to
approach this great guru, the last in Flagstaff last year. That was as
always too short, with interruptions at such events as everyone seemed to want
a piece of his time. I had a chance to exchange a few words with Richard and
Tony Thompson as we moved through the buffet for dinner. I did come to know him better through
exchanges of email, the last where I asked his advice on QC’ing my input for
painting this current Shake_n_Take project.
Richard confirmed my synopsis, but gently suggested one detail that I
had forgotten. I did update my post http://northbaylines.blogspot.com/2014/06/colors-markings-of-2014-shake-take.html
to incorporate that extra detail. We
will no longer be able to make those casual queries that were answered so
completely and rapidly.
Richard
surprised me earlier this year when he purchased one of my excess brass
locomotives. He had done the original data package for it back in the
60's and wanted an intact one for his diorama. In packing it, I noticed
it was missing a step. The conversation about what to do was the first I
had with Richard by phone. Fortunately I had a second loco of this class,
although it had foam residue which we agreed to substitute as he had to have it
stripped to paint anyway.
Richard was
very generous of his time and knowledge, and gave me advice on interpreting
hand scrawled notes of freight car numbers in response to a query I made of him
regarding correcting sources last year. That advice came with an
unsolicited photo of a two dome tank car that was very likely as sister to the
one that I had enquired about. My
original post can be seen here: http://northbaylines.blogspot.com/2013/05/sources.html
and Richard’s reply to me follows:
John, those of
us who have worked with conductors' time books, switch lists, etc. well know
that the handwriting of trainmen and switchmen was often obscure and sometimes
illegible, and those errors have often made their way into transcriptions made
from those handwritten documents.
So I have no doubt that what was seen as an "N" was in fact a
"W" and that the car in question was a WEOX car, especially since the
number matches.
White Eagles was, of course a Kansas City-based subsidiary of the Socony-Vacuum
Oil Co. (that is, Standard Oil Co. of New York). The cars of all the S-V
midwestern subsidiaries later were combined into a single fleet with SVX
reporting marks, and still later the name was changed to the Mobil Oil Co. with
MOBX reporting marks. Car numbers, however, often did not change, and I'd
be willing to bet that the attached photo of MOBX 228 shows a car in what was
formerly the WEOX 200-249 series. At any rate, it was a two
compartment 8,000 gal. car (and those are pretty rare) and was built by GATC in
the mid-1920s.
In 1943 Mobil did not market retail products in the Pacific Coast states, but
of course tank cars were pooled under the wartime authority of the federal
government, so at that time a WEOX car could have been routed anywhere.
Richard Hendrickson
MOBX 228 Courtesy Richard Hendrickson
WEOX 238 was
interchanged from the ATSF to the SP at Port Chicago in November 1944. It will become a fixture on my eventual
layout.
The above interchange demonstrates the thoughtful, gracious, generous person that he was.
We will all
miss Richard for who was, a friend, fellow flier, historian, modeler and teacher.
He taught us much throughout his life and has left a legacy through his
work, his friends, and his admirers. He continues to teach us from the
great beyond through his legacy. But even his sudden departure has a
lesson in it, that life is unpredictable and that we should live it well as any
day could be our last. That is a lesson that I have failed to heed in the
past and resolve to pay it more heed.
My deepest
sympathies to Richard’s wife Sandra, their family and friends.
John Barry
With great
sadness this Independence Day 2014
Cameron Park,
CA
