Karl Koenig, one of the six founding members of the Pacific Locomotive Association, died this morning in Paducah, KY of heart failure. Karl was a long time friend to my wife and me, and his wife, Burneda, was introduced to Karl by my wife, Madeline. Burneda called my wife this morning about an hour after Karl passed to give us the news.
For a number of years, Karl owned Chatham Publishing, which, among other things, published Pacific News. Additionally, Karl was the manager of Railtown 1897 when the Pacific Locomotive Association ran the franchise for the state of California. After Railtown, Karl spent a number of years running the Roaring Camp & Big Trees in Felton for Georgiana Clark, the widow of Norman Clark, the founder. Georgie, as she was called, died on March 2, less than 3 weeks ago.
After Roaring Camp, Karl and Burneda moved to Kentucky and ran a shortline railroad, the Hardin Southern Railroad, which provided local freight service and a tourist train. In 2005, the line was sold to the Murray-Calloway Development Corporation.
In the early 60's, Karl worked as a brakeman for the SP and would often work the Monterey Branch. He loved to regale us with stories of the branch and how it never seemed to be possible to work the branch from Watsonville Junction in under 15 hours, 59 minutes.
Just recently, Karl and Burneda made a great circle trip by Amtrak and they visited us for 10 days. Karl had sworn many times that he would never come to California again, but he did this time. We revisited many of Karl's old haunts, including Railtown, Roaring Camp, Standard (home of the Pickering Lumber Co), and Tuolumne (West Side Lumber Company). In one of life's pleasant surprises, we ran into Don Chakerian, one of Railtown's first employees and who is now a UP engineer. When Don worked at Railtown, he was referred to as Da Kid, a name that would ill suit him now. Karl got a real kick out of that encounter.
I'll miss Karl. I met him when Madeline and I first went up to Railtown back in 1983 to do volunteer work on behalf of the PLA. Karl's the reason I saw some of the second unit filming of a rather forgettable film called " Chattanooga Choo Choo" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087041/ ) and got a cab ride in #28 from Oakdale to Jamestown.
Rest in peace, my friend.
Mike NeSmith
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