@Strummer posted:Thanks for showing those; it appears he was quite the craftsman.
Sorry to hear of your friend's passing.
Mark in Oregon
Hello Mark -
Thanks for your reply comments. Ed was a sort of craftsman -- but Ed was proud of being what he called a cheapskate, frugal, low budget scrounger -- ewven though he made great money as a Loco Engineer on Montana Rail Link RR & earlier Burlington Northern RR. Almost all of his cars were made using smooth finish cereal box carstock, and carstock of similar type for other boxes products. No fuzzy grainy effect when paint hits it. Fine scale details were not his signature. He just wanted them to look proper, scale sized prototype dimensions - and to operate ! He was basically a Lionel 027 and Flyer tinplater- hi-railer mindset. No frills layout -- just basic - Plasticville buildings, painted grass, 200 foot high (heh) lampposts (Lionel) and such.
But it was his basement empire. He was a well noted NYC Transit historian and also loved and was a knowledgeable historian on FERRY Boats of the NYC and Philadelphia waterways. He built a huge model of one of the 1940's era old Staten island Ferry Boats that Ed and I rode on in our NY Growing up days. I posted 3 photos of it -- TOP ONE is model completed -- next two are it half completed still under construction -- and THE LAST one is a short River Ferry in HO Scale that I built for my Ferry terminal on my long ago HO Scale NY City based EL & trolley Layout
BELOW: COMPLETED STATEN ISLAND FERRY in fully scratchbuilt cardstock & wood by Edward Davis Sr.
BELOW: NEXT TWO photos show the model at earlier time under half way completed construction
BELOW: Seen is my own scratch built scale River Ferry Boat I (Joseph Frank) built in HO Scale back 1980 for a small Ferry Terminal I built on the river edge of my HO Scale NY City "EL" & Trolley layout - shown in its slip and dock. Made with Cardstock, wood and some plastic for the ferry and head house building. I am also a fan and historian of NY City and Philadelphia PA Ferry Boats
Ed and I have very similar interest and grew up in NY City - but he was a basic tinplater and I became the fine-scale model maker guy
He will be missed for the 57 years (1963 thru 2020) I knew Ed.
regards - Joe F
