50 Years of Live Steam Meets in Texas

[dnevil]

August 31, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary since the first Live Steam meet in Texas. The Live Steam hobby has been alive and well long before this, but L.L. Yates' was the pioneer who brought together the first group of brothers for an official meet. You can read more about it here:

http://ibls.org/mediawiki/index.php?tit ... rias_Meets

Happy steaming!

Daris

[sbalkum]

With the Southwestern Live Steamers, the Houston Area Live Steamers, and the various private meets, there is definitely a lot of steam in Texas.

Personally, this is literally the only hobby I have ever known. John Enders, my grandfather, inspired generations of live steamers. I learned to fire on his Atlantic pictured on the IBLS site.

And the consolidation chassis displayed by Clarence King in the 1971 photo is alive and well as Austin & Texas Central #591. This photo was taken this past April at the SWLS Spring Meet at the Annetta Valley & Western RR.

-Stephen

[Dick_Morris]

I wasn't there 50 years ago, but was stationed in San Antonio for three years starting about 47 years ago and that's where I first got involved in the live steam hobby. I remember John Enders with his Atlantic with a fabricated cylinder block, I believe Clarence King had a gas electric locomotive with some fancy electronics, Ces Beck had an LE 0-4-0 that was built by Torn's machine shop and had several meets at the track around his house and hobby shop, Les Burford was into casting, Leon Schwark had a whistle and air tank in his truck and built a Tom Thumb, and Alex Hitzfelder was building a gas switcher. I remember riding on his home track while a Mopac(?) train passed on the track about 100 feet from us. Before dinner at Alex's house was where I first saw someone doing home casting of aluminum. Although recovering from a stroke, Hank Blossom hosted several meets at the track at his house in Wimberly. Dave Hughes during his three year AF stint in San Antonio built an nice running LE 0-4-0 in the small tool shed at his house on Lackland. Terry McGrath was at several of the meets I went to and was from somewhere closer to Austin. I never made it to L.L. Yates track around his laundry in Falfurrias where he ran an LE Northern.