The Ghost of Bill Drudge

The East Bay Model Engineer’s Society is a model railroad club that has been in existence since 1933.  In 1985, the  Golden State Model Railroad Museum was created to work with the State of California in transforming a vacant 10,000 square foot maintenance building in Point Richmond into the home of three extensive model railroads; N scale, HO scale and O scale.

I discovered it quite by chance around 1987 and have been a member ever since.  It’s location in Miller-Knox Regional Park in Point Richmond is always appreciated by the children of all ages who still and will always love the magical lure of a train.

When I joined, one of the original members, an old curmudgeon named Bill Drudge, took me under his wing.  We were in the process of building the giant O Scale layout, which would eventually include 40’ high mountains complete with a network of maintenance cat walks, just like Disney’s Matterhorn, but without an abominable snowman to scare the kiddies.  

Speaking of abominable snowmen, Bill somehow seemed to like me.  We were in the process of building what we called the spline, which is the base foundation of what will become the sturdy roadbed for the ballast and ties of the hand-laid and individually spiked rail. 

It consisted of tacking a thin strip of ¼” pine to the vertical risers that defined the height, curve and grade of the line to be constructed.  Once the first spline is attached, other pieces of the ¼” spline are glued at overlapping lengths to create a very solid roadbed.  We would use a yellow carpenter’s glue on the splines, put them in position and then clamp them to dry.

Bill used to refer to this process as “buttering” and I would hear him barking out his orders, “Come on, boys, and butter those biscuits!  There’s rail to be laid!”  He was quite the “Straw Boss” and we were his chain gang, thinking of both the Pretenders and the original Sam Cooke.

Bill was working alone in this section one night and had his fatal heart attack.  They found him in the morning.

He must have known he was ill because, just before he passed, he wanted me to have one of the engines of his collection and, even though I bought it from him, the price was so low, I really considered it a gift from the mentor of my model railroad and club aspirations.

A year or so had passed, and I’m at the club, alone, and working on a project.  We had completed the foundations of that area of the layout and it had been worked up to include scenery and a small rail yard as part of the locomotive maintenance facility that was planned in this location. 

I was on a step ladder doing detail work on rails, ties and switch points.  This section was in the foothills of the layout so it was elevated, making this rail yard approximately 8 feet above the bare concrete floor.  There was also a big pile of leftover short, sharp spline pieces and some other scraps of lumber, complete with protruding nails and such, all behind me.

I started to stop down from the ladder when I suddenly realized that I was not on our step ladder but rather on a high metal stool that didn’t have steps down the side.

There was nothing to catch my foot and I continued backwards, now in a free fall and with nothing but hard concrete, sharp spline pieces and nails below me.  My fall was, as I recall it, in complete slow motion.  There was not a sound to be made as I fell and then landed in the pile of lumber and nails.

There was no “thud,” no “crash.”  There was not a sound made at all.  Nothing.

It seemed as if I had floated down from my high perch and softly, gently, safely landed amid all this possible carnage.

Shocked, I rose and composed myself.  I felt no pain, had no bruises, and was not affected by this fall in one little bit.  

Then, I had the unnerving realization that, not only was I standing in the area where Bill had barked out those commanding, “Keep on buttering those biscuits, boys,”  but I was also standing in the area of the railroad where Bill had died.

I will go to my grave completely convinced that the Ghost of Bill Drudge was there to catch me and to safely lower me to this gentle and harmless landing amid the nails, sharp pieces of spline and the very hard concrete floor.

I still have that Jerry White built, crafted from brass, 48 to the foot, O scale model, Pennsylvania Railroad, Model J1a, 2-10-4 “Texas” type of an engine that is so powerful, it can pull 100 loaded and heavy model freight cars slowly and effortlessly up every grade with zero hesitation, fully controlled power and absolutely no wheel slip.  It is as much of a beast as the original prototype, legendary brute that worked the long, hard pulls out of Ohio and into the Alleghenies.

It is the jewel of my railroad collection.

I miss my friend and, who knows, perhaps one day, when it is my turn to be on the "other side," I can ask him directly about that time when he seemed to be there for me at such a right time and place.