Sorry to see you go, Bill

The Gandy Dancer Supplement for January, 2006

ACCRS Loses a Master

By Dick Stark

The world of model railroading has lost one of its lifetime members, and so has the ACCRS. Bill Kennerley was a model railroader of extraordinary ability who was willing to help younger modelers learn the skills necessary to create a miniature world for enjoyment and pleasure. Bill told me that when he bought his house he looked at the basement and his wife looked at the upstairs. Bill built an excellent representation of the SP from Oakland to Sparks over Donner Pass in O Scale. The track plan for this layout, his second one in the basement, was drawn by John Armstrong and featured in the May 1972 Model Railroader, titled "Sierra Pass Revisited." This layout is one of the earliest multi level layouts ever published.

Bill was in his early 80's. (I think, because he would never reveal his age. He said it wasn't important.) Emmy, Bill's wife, told me he was 81 when he passed away last month. When George Cummings and I visited him in the hospital about a week and half before his passing, Bill and George spent a great deal of time talking about the Cal Bears (George's Team) and USC Trojans (Bills Love.) His dislikes in football were rude fans, students, Notre Dame, Stanford and Cal Berkeley in that order. Bill and George were discussing the Pac 10 and Cals national standing at the time [of our last visit].

Bill's other sports love was Baseball; Bill had season tickets to the Giants games and when he attended the game he always had his score keeping book and kept track of every play. Bill will be missed by some of our club members, because of the spare tickets he would sell, or the discussions about early Pacific Coast League Baseball players. Bills interest in sports was a part of his life, because he was a college baseball player and due to baseball injuries, he didn't make it in the Pacific Coast League. Bill was a high school football coach in the Central Valley before becoming an elementary school teacher in Martinez and a referee for high school games. For years after he could be seen working on his model railroad in a black and white striped shirt in his basement.

Bill worked as a fireman for the SP in the closing days of steam and almost all of the engines on his layout are listed in his fireman's logbook. Bill worked as a school teacher during the day, and then worked on the 4 to 12 shift in the evening for a number of years and boomed around the SP full time in the summer from El Paso thru Northern California and Nevada, Bill spent two weeks firing on the SP narrow gauge in the Owens Valley when the regular fireman went on vacation. Bill qualified as an engineer before being cut off by the layoff of firemen due to law changes in California in the early 60's, a because of this he never got to mark up as an engineer. Bill had a small railroad retirement along with his teacher retirement.

Bill wrote a series of articles about his life and experiences as a railroader in and around the Bay Area in the NMRA PCR Bulletin. That was when I met him for the first time. We became friends and railroading buddies over the years. Bill was already an NMRA Master Model railroader number 67 when we met in the mid 1970's. Bill invited me over to visit his layout, and that was when I started losing interest in HO. Bill and I spent many hours building his layout. We started building scenery on the layout and he always had a reason why it couldn't be done at that time: "I need more station signs, snow depth markers, trees" and I would say, "Build them," and he did finally. He ran out of details to build and we started slinging mud.

Bill learned to enjoy scenery building, but his true model railroad love was building passenger cars. Bill built a total of seven full length completely detailed passenger trains in O scale that include the Coast Daylight, the City of San Francisco and several secondary SP passenger trains. Many of Bill's cars were scratch built and were NMRA national contest winners. Bill helped me build three WP heavy weight passenger cars and last year for Christmas he gave me two sets of custom made car sides with the correct window arrangements for a WP Dinner and Observation car. It took Bill 3 years to get these sides punched out. I hope to get these cars finished soon.

Bill's love of passenger cars and his love of model railroading extended beyond his individual needs. Bill went through the Pullman car names by class such as the Lake Class and all the others, found the common second names. Bill put this list together and it was produced in decal form for all of us to use by Walters in HO and O gauge way before anyone had a computer to do name sorts with.

Bill was not into modern electronics or airplanes but he attended all most every NMRA national convention in the summer. He would spend weeks planning the trip and then Bill and Emmy and their children Donna and Jim would travel by train to the convention and rent a car to tour the historical locations and museums in the area around the convention and then take the train home again. Bill took a Model Railroader with him when he went to pick up his tickets a few years ago at the Martinez station. The agent saw it and said I model the SP from Oakland to Sparks. Bill in the following discussion discovered that the agents layout was an HO version of the Sierra Pass, Bill an I visited the agents layout and it was mind blowing to see your layout in a different scale and at a different point of construction.

Bill and Emmy went to Hawaii a few years ago on vacation and Bill had to fly there; he would have preferred a cruise ship, but none were sailing at that time. Bill said they had a good time, which shows what a tremendous amount of love Bill had for his family. Bill left behind his wife Emmy, a son and daughter Jim and Donna, Three grand children Laura, Leigh, and Natalie and one Great Grand Child, Madison/*. Bill was devoted to his family, railroading, his hobby model railroading, and teaching children.

The ACCRS will miss our Master Model Railroader and the input, skill, and experience that Bill brought to the club. Bill will be remembered as an all around good guy and gentleman who could give and take a joke without being offended.

The club will miss Bill.

The Gandy Dancer, a monthly publication of the Alameda County Central Railroad Society.
Last updatedJanuary 14, 2006.

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