Bill Neale: an appreciation

Just last December 28, one of the model railroaders I have admired most passed away. It was Bill Neale, of Farmington, Michigan (in the Detroit area), aged just 74. I know Bill grew up in Indiana, and over his career worked for GM, HP and EDS. He was active in the NMRA and in the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society. For a fuller biography, you can visit this site: https://www.heeney-sundquist.com/obituary/william-neale-ii . I enjoyed chatting with him every time we had the chance. Here’s a good photo from that obituary. 

I first knew Bill’s name because of his article in Model Railroader (“Plastic pocket car cards,” February 2009, pages 62–65), with his idea to use clear sleeves, intended for baseball-card collectors, to hold what are usually called car cards. Bill very appropriately called them waybills.

These waybills were simply inserted into the clear sleeves, which bore labels for individual cars. This meant that the waybills would be about the size of baseball cards, 2.5 x 3.5 inches, plenty of space for generous information (something I like) but small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and easy to handle. I thought Bill’s waybills were a little primitive, but the card sleeve idea really caught my imagination.

Since then, I’ve published several articles about my own waybill design, along with numerous posts to this blog on the topic (easily found by using “waybills”as the search term in the search box at upper right) and often mention that the entire idea and inspiration came from Bill. And as it happened, Bill later revised his own waybills to reflect some of my ideas! Inspiration flowing in both directions.

One of the great pleasures for me whenever there was an operating weekend in the Detroit area was another visit to Bill’s superb PRR layout, modeling the Panhandle Division west of Pittsburgh (I described it extensively in a post about ProRail in 2021, at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/11/attending-prorail-2021.html ). Of course part of the pleasure was to see Bill himself again.

I had earlier shown a few scenes from the layout taken at the GLG (Great Lakes Getaway) in 2017 (see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2017/12/layouts-at-great-lakes-getaway-part-2.html ). Luckily, I attended another GLG just this fall, and saw the layout one more time, along with a bunch of others (see descriptions at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-2023-great-lakes-getaway.html ).

This was really one of my favorite layouts, among those I like best in the whole country. His depiction of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1939, in the tri-state area of western Pennsylvania, the West Virginia panhandle at Weirton, and into Ohio at Steubenville and Mingo Junction was beautifully done. Though it’s not a large basement, Bill masterfully designed the layout to include a significant amount of mainline running and some excellent switching areas. 

A centerpiece of the layout was his (necessarily considerably compressed) model of the Penny’s Panhandle Bridge across the Ohio River, connecting Weirton, West Virginia with Steubenville, Ohio. The state line is even marked on the fascia.

The principal yard on the layout was at Weirton, and I have operated there several times, both as assistant yardmaster and (last fall) as yardmaster. Really a nice, spacious yard to work in, and busy enough with substantial train lengths to service. In the foreground, you see a few of his impressive and thoroughly-weathered fleet of gondolas.

These gondolas were mostly well-rusted and dirty inside and nearly every one contained rubble from previous loads. As I know from watching passing trains from overhead, this is quite prototypical, and I think Bill modeled it as well as anyone. Here’s an interior view.

The other extensive switching area was at Steubenville, and on one visit, I drew the Steubenville switch job. This really was challenging and fun, with lots of planning needed for many of the moves. The power was a PRR 0-6-0, seen here passing the depot.

Before closing, I want to add one more comment. When I first met Bill in person, we really hit it off and had a great conversation. Since then, I have chatted with Bill at many meets and have operated on his layout five times, every one a delight. So it was with considerable sadness I heard about his passing. A great guy with a great layout, a mentor and a friend. I’ll miss you, Bill.

Tony Thompson