April 2026 
President's Report
Presidents Message
Welcome to Spring! I love this time of year, when the tulips and daffodils are bursting forth. I am so excited for planting season. Next week, I will begin sowing tomato, pepper, cuke, and zuke seeds in my cold frame. Many of us first learned about the TCA when a friend planted an idea in our heads. Now is time to plant seeds of membership in the Fort Pitt Division!
Five years ago, we began offering a free raffle ticket to attendees as they entered our shows with the goal of building a mailing list for future events. Over the course of those five years, that list has grown to over 1500 solid names. Mr. Jones might not take his grandsons to York, but he has taken them to a train show in his community. Did he know that the TCA existed? Maybe not… but he does now!
The strength of the TCA is its 20 divisions. Any promotion of TCA National must begin at the division level. We, in the Fort Pitt are blessed with a vibrant, active division. We have a website, Facebook page and newsletter that are current. We have an annual holiday party, tinplate talk, and summer outing. This season, content creators became a significant addition, posting many of our events. Our membership is stable, and we are financially secure.
The Fort Pitt Train Is Rolling
The past five months have been exhilarating with train shows in December, January and now in April. We celebrated Locomotion Weekend in January and the Home and Garden Show in March. Our January Fort Pitt Division Train Show was a tremendous success. Despite frigid temperatures, 730 people attended.
Locomotion Weekend
In mid-January, the Kamin (formerly Carnegie) Science Center had its annual “Locomotion Weekend.” In addition to the Miniature Railroad and Village on the second floor, the Point View Room hosted eight layouts in gauges, Z, N, HO, O and Lego. The Fort Pitt Division was proudly represented by the Hi-Railers and the Kids Club. This year, 5000 people visited the Science Center for Locomotion Weekend. What a wonderful, child-centered event it was with so many young families participating!
Home and Garden Show
The Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show is one of the most highly anticipated events of the year for the Fort Pitt Division. Over the course of the 10 days of the show, nearly 300,000 people who were looking for home remodelers attended. Forty volunteers including 27 Division members ran trains, answered questions, and passed out literature. Many people told us stories about the trains their fathers and grandfathers had while their children followed trains around the track and pushed buttons on interactive displays.
2026 Summer Outing
Save the date
We are excited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our Fort Pitt Division next year. Plans are well underway for a Celebration in the Highlands on May 23, 2027. Watch for details coming soon!
National News
Around the first of the month, you should have received two emails from TCA National. The first was a packet describing the exciting events to be held at our TCA National Convention in Grapevine, Texas, June 22 through 27. Please consider attending the convention this year.
The second email included the TCA National Officer ballot. 2026 is an election year for TCA National. There will also be a printed ballot in the April issue of the Train Collectors Quarterly. Please vote in this election, either electronically or the printed ballot. Please note, you can only vote once and by only one method.
David Matthews, president 
Fort Pitt Division Activities
Locomotion Weekend
The 2026 edition of Locomotion Weekend was held on January 17 and 18. Nikki Wilhelm, Manager of the Miniature Railroad and Village does a brilliant job of organizing the many groups that participate in the marvelous annual event.
Locomotion Weekend is an event that draws kids and adults, as well.
Ruby, a middle school student and member of the Fort Pitt Kids Club provides another outstanding module.
2026 Mid-Winter Train Show
Our Fort Pitt Division Mid-Winter Train Show was a huge success. One of the highlights of the day was a display of trains kit-bashed by Thom Shepler.
Thom, who passed away in November was a highly skilled craftsman. At the request of his wife and daughter, Kurt Kissner and Jim Oravik, pictured here with Fort Pitt Division Vice President George Starz, sold some of Thom’s trains and accessories. Items went very quickly as many people wanted memorabilia from his collection.
Live streaming of our train shows has become a regular feature. Content Creators, Jeremy Sodano and Mike DeCaro on the left are live. On the right, Nick Futules of PghTrainFanatics and Mike browse the show.
Fort Pitt Division friendships span all ages.
Four year old Elliot Figura was the winner of the Kid’s Raffle. Elliot’s favorite train is the Sante Fe War Bonnet. He is pictured here with his father, Jason and Fort Pitt Division president, Dave.
2026 Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show
For me personally, the Home Show felt like a vacation with ten days to just enjoying the hobby, running trains. Consider joining the fun next year.
Visitors enjoying the interactive displays.
Doug Oster is the host of a weekly gardening show on KDKA radio. Each year, he also does presentations at the Home and Garden Show. He relates one of his favorite stories from the show.
Last year at the show, young boy sat through my presentation with his mom, dad, and sister. Afterwards, they came up to me to chat, and Miles brought out a box with a model train engine. He wondered if he would be allowed to run the engine on the train layout. I took them over to see my friend, Tom Garrity and his buddies who were overjoyed to help Miles out and get his engine pulling a long train. This year, when Miles returned to my presentation, I asked if he brought his engine, which he did. After my talk, we all walked over to the layout, I’m not sure who was more excited, Miles or the guys running the trains.
Iceberg took a break from cheering on the Penguins to visit the Home Show. Who knew he was a fan of toy trains?
Reader Response
Dave Matthews’s review of “The Railroad That Never Was” in the January issue of the LOCKON brought to mind a story of how this never finished railroad and the TCA created a friendship which has lasted over forty years. As long as I can remember, I have always been interested in highways and their construction. Though when I was a child, I thought the Pennsylvania Turnpike was an old and beat up highway, my image of that road changed dramatically when I attended medical school in Philadelphia.
As such, I used to drive the length of the Turnpike between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on a regular basis between 1978 and 1982. I learned the history of the road and came to understand it was an unprecedented achievement of civil engineering. Though despised by much of the public by the time I attended medical school, it was viewed as the eighth wonder of the world when it opened in 1940. Eventually I learned that much of it was built on the right of way of the never finished South Pennsylvania Railroad which is the subject of Herbert Harwoods’s book that Dave reviewed.
When I returned to Pittsburgh after I graduated medical school and began my residency at Mercy Hospital, I intentionally rented a two bedroom apartment. The purpose of the second room was to build a small O Gauge layout which would portray the South Penn as if it had been finished and still existed today. In the final year of medical school, we were given off a month of our choosing, and I elected to take off the final month before graduation.
Using that time off, I constructed a 10’ X 10’ modular layout in my parent’s garage, then disassembled it and moved it to my new apartment shortly before I began my internship. While I worked long hours as a medical intern, including many nights and 36 hour shifts, I somehow managed to get the layout completed over the course of the next year. I ultimately took many photographs of the layout, wrote an article about the real South Penn and the layout, and submitted it to the TCA Quarterly for publication.
I was extremely pleased that the TCA (which I had joined in 1978) chose to publish the article in the January 1985 issue of the Quarterly. Several months later I received a letter from a fellow TCA member living in New Jersey by the name of Mitchell Dakelman. He obtained my address from the no longer published TCA member directory which was given to members in those days. Mitchell wrote that he shared my love of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The final sentence of the letter stated that given our common interest in highways in general and the PA Turnpike in particular, that we would probably be very good friends.
Mitchell correctly predicted the future because the comment he made in that letter would become the truth. We are friends to this day, including our love of Lionel trains and attending almost all of the TCA York meets together over all these years. Beyond that, we regularly we travel the PA Turnpike, explore the abandoned South Penn right-of-way, and research archival Pennsylvania Turnpike engineering documents and photographs. But it is what the two of us would ultimately do which related to Dave’s review of Herbert Harwood’s book.
We eventually became aware of Arcadia Publishing which specialized in books written about historical subjects using captioned photographs. As it turned out, Mitchell was trained in the handling of archival materials, and I had a lifelong interest in highway engineering and actually worked in the local PennDOT office here in Pittsburgh several summers. (I should add that I met my other longtime friend and TCA member Tom Fox while working there!)
Using our interests and abilities, we approached Arcadia about publishing a book dealing with the history Pennsylvania Turnpike. They gladly accepted our proposal, and thereafter we began work on the book. Mitchell shipped me his archival photographs, many of which were never publicly seen, one of a kind images from private collections. Then, using my knowledge of highway engineering, I organized the photographs and wrote the chapter introductions and captions. The book would go on to sell over 10,000 copies, become a recognized reference book, and led to us writing a second book about the Turnpike in 2016.
So, after reading Dave’s review of “The Railroad That Never Was,” and letting him know that Mitch and I had written what were essentially follow up books to Herbert Harwood’s book, I felt compelled to honor his request to write a short response to his article, our connection to the South Penn, and to perhaps even include some photographs. So now you can see how the common interests of two guys living 400 miles apart and who had never met, shared an interest in Lionel Trains, and were TCA members led to a 40+ year friendship. Finally, it led to not one, but two books telling the story of the South Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pennsylvania Turnpike!
Neal Schorr
Fort Pitt Division Summer Outing
Fort Pitt Division Summer Outing 2026
Hello Fort Pitt Division Members! On Saturday, August 1st, we will travel to Rockhill Furnace, for an exciting day at the East Broad Top Railroad National Historic Landmark. Our outing will include a guided shop tour, a boxed lunch of your choice, the Northbound Colgate Grove excursion behind a steam engine, and a trolley ride with the Rockhill Trolley Museum.
The Summer Outing is a Fort Pitt Division benefit for members and their families. As a benefit of membership, the Fort Pitt Division will subsidize Lenzner Coach transportation from Wexford and Monroeville to Orbisonia Station. The cost for the East Broad Top outing is $60 per person.
The Lenzner Coach is a 56 passenger air conditioned bus so space will be limited. Of course, if you choose, you may drive and meet us at 421 Meadow Street, Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania 17247, no later than 11:00 a.m.
Itinerary
- You may choose one of two morning pickup stops:
- Board the Lenzner Coach, courtesy of the Fort Pitt Division at the Warrendale Park and Ride at 7:30 a.m., Warrendale Bayne Road at Brush Creek Road.
- Arrival at 421 Meadow Street, Rockhill Furnace at 11:00 a.m.
- Historic Shop Tour: 11:45 a.m.
- Boxed Lunch: 12:45 p.m.
- Northbound Colgate Grove Excursion: 1:30 p.m.
- Rockhill Museum Trolley Ride: 3:00 p.m.
- Depart Rockhill Furnace: 4:15 p.m.
- Arrive in Monroeville approximately 7:45
- Arrive in Wexford approximately 8:15
- Arrival at 421 Meadow Street, Rockhill Furnace at 11:00 a.m.
Please click on the link below to download the 2026 summer outing registration form.
