More on the "West Coast Legends":
Back in the late '60s and through the late '70s, Hank Schmidt ("Schmidy") ran a train shop in Santa Clara, CA, that was open "after 5p.m." and weekends. While he was never a National officer in the TCA but he certainly guided the TTOS and the TCA in the Bay Area through those years and was a stalwart collector. Certainly a legendary California TCA member in his time and place.
I "kinda" disagree with GZ's memory on Ward Kimball. My memory is that Ward was very active throughout the '70s and '80s and throughout the '90s nationally and in SoCal. In fact, he was the TCA president in 1974-1975. I was able to visit his 1:1 trains and FANTASTIC toy train collection a couple of times in San Gabriel...certainly nothing like I had seen before or have seen since.
