Bill Conner

[Mudhop]

I got this this morning:

It is with great sadness that I am reporting that Bill Conner has passed away this morning.
Bill has been a member (of Mid-South Live Steamers) for many years and has shared his
wisdom on steam engine building with fellow MSLS members. His design and construction of
50+ Conner Beam Engines and articulated engines is outstanding. They are widespread
including two engines in Germany. He was a great friend to many of us and I will miss him
greatly. Thanks, Greg Glos

[Fred_V]

I'm sorry to hear that. Bill was a delightful gentleman.

[Harlock]

The Connor beam engine is the first live steamer I ever ran. My hats off to a man who made a great contribution to the hobby. Here is Chris Enright and his very fine example of the 2+2 version. I've always loved this engine for its eccentricity and the fact that you can fit it in the back of a car and yet is ergonomically easy to run like a narrow gauge engine. It's nice that the design will continue on in the form of the plans now being sold. For most of its life, Bill made all of the beam engines ready to run himself from what I understand.

-M

[fresnojay]

Oh my this is sad to hear. My condolences to his friends and family. Like Mike I first learned how to run a steam engine on my good friend Tom Osterdock's Conner Beam Engine 2+2. I also continue to help Tom maintain the loco and train new engineers in the hobby on his equipment. This little loco is insanely powerful for such a small package. It never stops impressing me. He will be greatly missed and truly a sad day.

Jason

[Pontiacguy1]

Bill Conner was 91 years old, and would have been 92 this year. I also ran one of his beam engins as a kid and really loved them. He did indeed build all of them 'ready to run' and didn't use any castings in their manufacture. He used to have a track in his back yard to run on and to test out his locomotives. That got taken up several years ago when he quit building the locomotives. Almost all of the beam engines were built as propane burners, but I know of at least one 0-4-0 version that was built as a coal burner from the beginning. It took a couple of tries to get it where it would steam just right, but when he was done with it, it would perform just as good as any of the propane fired ones. I believe that the man that owns it now lives in Georgia.

He also had a really unique truck and riding car design that equalized the trucks together to control side-to-side rock. This made for a very stable riding car as long as the weight was fairly equally distributed. Because of this, a lot of people used them for riding cars. They were also completely fabricated with no castings. He used a needle bearing that ran on a hardened die pin, which was pressed into the end of the axle, and was probably one of the first ones to do this in the hobby. These gave long service life and were virtually maintenance free. I know of several of them that are 30+ years old and are still running.

He was one of four Mid-South Live Steamers' members that were 90 years old or more.

[Fender]

I believe Bill was one of the founding members of MSLS including Paul Brien, Bud Bartholomew, Austin Barr, etc?

[gwrdriver]

Dan,
No, Bill came along a few years later.

[Pontiacguy1]

No, Bill was not a founding member of MSLS.

There are actually only two charter members of the club left: Joe Ed Gaddes, and our own gwrdriver!

Thanks guys!

[blff cty lcmtv wrks]

to whom it may concern:

let's not forget the late r. f. wilson. i believe he was a charter member.

thanx

big c.

[Pontiacguy1]

There were 9 charter members of the Mid-South Live steamers: Austin Barr (deceased), Bud Bartholomew (deceased), Bill Pepper (deceased), Joe Ed Gaddes, Harry Wade, Paul Brien (deceased), Leroy Nessen (deceased), Bob Wilson (deceased), and Jack Nessen. I'm actually unsure about Jacn Nessen. I've not seen him since I was about 19 or 20 years old. Most of these guys have been gone for more than 10 years now. Paul Brien died about 3 years ago, and was the most recent.

Maybe gwrdriver can fill this bit of information in about Jack.

[wagonmaker]

Sorry to hear of yet another pioneer passing.

Can any one tell me if the plans for this wonderful wee machine are available somewhere.

Cheers,

Tom

[gwrdriver]

Scott,
So far as I know Jack Nessen is still living, but he hasn't been involved in live steam for many years.