233 County House Road Clarksboro, NJ 08020.
For these last few years I have ceased writing an account of our
Kinzer R & T show for I felt I was becoming repetitious. This
year I must make an effort, for blessed with excellent weather, it
was tremendous. Oliver and Hart-Parr were in the center ring with
Mr. Woodward in charge of this presentation exhibit. In addition,
all other makes and models were well represented.
Wednesday evening Ray Herr had quite a few sidewalk
superintendents watching him dig out the footing of the old Baker
fan. This proved to be a much larger lump of concrete than the
tractor was able to lift. A deeper hole was dug alongside of it and
the block pushed in, then covered with dirt. Remember where X marks
the spot Ray, for you may wish to drive a stake in the ground there
some time.
Much work has been done this year with the covering of the Snow
pumping engine and the completion of the building. Nevin Myers
being the leader, Rudy is working hard to clean up and Pappy was
welding pipe. Another new building will be the boiler house to
house the new Cleaver Brookes boiler. This will supply steam to the
large stationary engines in the main engine room with the above
mentioned Snow, the Watts and Campbell three generating units and
about eight more horizontals. I also noticed a large Edison
bi-polar generator of early vintage in the rear of the Skinner.
Maybe this can be hooked up to a power source at some future
date.
Wallis & Stevens 4 N.P.H. showman’s tractor No. 7572.
Built in Basingstoke, England in 1917 and brought to R & T by
Pat & Terry Fitzpatrick of Clough, County Down, N. Ireland.
Improvement number two would definitely be the largest, and
that’s the new ‘Titus Brubaker’ building which the
announcer said was 150 ft. long and 50 ft. wide. This building is
to house R & T’s nicely painted engines I understand. This
is great for it’s bird proof and periodically through the year
one can polish one’s engine without fear of foreign matter from
above. Also this will be great for visitors during the year, as
there will be plenty of room to walk between machines and examine
them. During this reunion, this building was occupied by the
antique car buffs, just the ideal place for them; out of the smoke
and dust.
Improvement number three has to be the rebuilding of the
railroad and locomotive. The young man, and I don’t know his
name, took the locomotive, widened it and fitted new trucks and
gearing, and also the passenger car. All the track was made to
accommodate the wider gauge with fresh ballast and new ties. This
suits another locomotive at R & T built by Everett Young’s
dad, the organization’s founder. After running in Maryland
somewhere, I believe, it returned to Kinzer and has been donated to
Tough and Rumble!!
A Peerless and two Fricks lined up for the parade with the old
Shapely & Wells portable in foreground.
Improvement number four is the new coal bunker which has a
concrete floor and wood sides. Far, far better than shoveling the
coal off the ground, for sometimes you had half a shovel full of
clay and that folks, ‘Don’t make too good’ a fire’.
Many more water lines have been added also, which has eliminated a
constant hassle around the water tank before the parade.
There were two people missing from our reunion that I must
mention, who are both sick and I’m told, will be convalescing
for some time. They were our oldest young Mr. Titus Brubaker and
our model building director Paul White. Titus, your engine went
through the parade but it didn’t like it much with you not
driving it. Paul, the organ I promised you for the model shop was
there, and there it will remain. For the benefit of readers, a
picture and an article of this organ appeared in IMA July/August
1976, titled ‘Music of the Grand Gavioli’.
Mr. Carl Simpson was our moderator for most of the time keeping
folks informed of the various activities. One of Carl’s
interests is in old plows and he had quite a collection on the bank
below the Jump Press. Thursday he mentioned these old plows over
the P.A. system and lo and behold, on Friday someone brought him in
another of remote manufacture.
As for animal power, we had Mr. Lapp’s Belgian horses, the
oxen team, and a beautiful team of six mules. I did not get the
gentleman’s name that owned them but they made quite a sight
with the array of bells across the top of each animal’s collar.
Would you believe another animal that came to the show Saturday
evening was a squirrel. He came hopping across the grounds paying
absolutely no attention to anyone. Guess he was looking for
tidbits.
Our cavalcade of power was the greatest ever, consisting of 29
steam units. We had the Fricks and the Case and the Peerless, the
Port Huron, Westinghouse and the Buffalo Springfield, but, we had
something that I don’t believe has ever been presented at an
American show before, namely a British show mans engine.
The above engine is a Wallis & Stevens built in Basingstoke,
England in 1917, rated at 4 nominal HP, which, according to
American standards, would be about 30 HP (belt-wise). It was
brought over by the two brothers Pat and Terry Fitzpatrick of
County Down, Northern Ireland, specially for the R & T reunion.
This engine is called ‘Lady Luck’ and is complete with full
length canopy, lights, generator and full carnival twisted square
brass. Having built a 2 inch scale model of one of these beautiful
machines I’ve got to say that I wish I had the asking price for
this engine as it is for sale through R &T.
Friday evening ‘Lady Luck’ was in the steam games and
did quite well against the Fricks and the Peerless. The bleachers
were packed with people and I never saw so many. The young fellow
who played the part of the policeman really helped the games be
more enjoyable by creating many funny incidents. At the end of the
games Terry put the belt on the generator of ‘Lady Luck’
and lit up the colored lights around the canopy. This really makes
the brass glisten, even far more than in sunlight, and brought back
many memories to me.
Mrs. Titus Brubaker cutting the ribbon on the new building named
for her husband. With her is Otis Astle, current club
president.
I think our show was a great one, it’s hard work and much
merit goes to our president, Mr. Otis Astle and his band of
officers who organized the whole shooting match. Saturday evening I
put the old roller to bed, loaded up my models, got cleaned up and
proceeded up to the gate. Resting on the picnic tables were some of
the tire dest looking guys you ever saw. Ray Herr said, ‘Fred,
you can take that exhibitors card out of your window now, it’s
all over’. I replied ‘Yea ’till next year’. Well,
’till next year!
