Wendell Dillinger, a major figure in traction preservation for over 60 years, died on Sunday the 10th at the age of 93. He was the owner of the Middletown & Hummelstown, a short line and tourist railroad based in Middletown, Pennsylvania, which he purchased in 1976.
In the years before that, he was active in the traction preservation scene in the Chicago area. I met him just once, in 2003, and I recall him describing how he was one of the principals behind the consortium museum lawsuit against the Chicago Aurora & Elgin around 1962. To make a long story short, the railroad had sold 15 or 20 cars to various trolley museums, but then later decided to sell the entire fleet - including those 15 or 20 cars - to the scrapper. Wendell helped organize the joint museum effort to file a lawsuit against the CA&E which was (obviously) successful and resulted in a cross-section of cars from the line being preserved instead of every last car being cut up. For the railroad's part, they had to purchase the museum cars back from the scrapper - of course at two or three times what the scrapper had paid for them!
Anyway, during the 1960s, Wendell worked for the C&NW and then the Iowa Terminal. Meanwhile, he started amassing a small collection of electric railway equipment, including two Rio de Janeiro open cars that were stored at the then-Railway Equipment Leasing & Investment Corporation site (today the Fox River Trolley Museum) and an ex-Kansas City steeplecab that went to Iowa Terminal but never ran there. In the late 1970s or early 1980s, after he purchased the M&H, he moved all of his equipment to Middletown and began collecting more, including a smattering of cars from Red Arrow, SEPTA's city lines, the Lackawanna, and some car bodies thrown in too. Today, the M&H has 24 cars on the PNAERC roster. Wendell also oversaw operation of the M&H tourist railroad business and the restoration of a Canadian 2-6-0 steam locomotive. About ten years ago, he had a carbarn built in Middletown and was finally able to put the more significant pieces from the traction collection into protected storage.
Wendell Dillinger left an indelible mark on traction preservation. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.
So sad to hear of Wendell’s passing, I had the pleasure of meeting Wendell just once on a trip with fellow activist Fred Maloney. Wendell was just fascinating to listen to as he related some great Midwest Traction episodes and was a veritable fountain of knowledge particularly on the Midwest Interurban scene.
ReplyDeleteWendell was part of my indoctrination into the electric railway preservation field, especially when I stayed with him in Mason City for one week in August 1970 to learn about electric railways on the Iowa Traction from him, the late Ed Allen and Ed's shop assistant Vern. This was helpful with my involvement in the establishing a museum operation at East Troy and later my activities with RELIC and now the Fox River Trolley Museum. I last saw Wendell in 2015 and was struck with our resemblance to each other, some much so that the late editor of TRAINS MAGAZINE, Jim Wrinn would keep calling me Wendell. A note of correction on Wendell's
DeleteGE H&N steeple cab. While it was in Mason City, it was stored in a local oil company yard, and never touched the rails of the Iowa Traction as the Boyer family was not interested in it, having a stable of Baldwin-Westinghouse locomotives which are still on duty today.