Thursday, August 20, 2015

Seat Wagons #4


6 comments:

JIM ELLIOTT said...

I have often wondered WHY, at one
Of these wagons did not survive?
I would love to have had a UP CLOSE
Examination of one.

Harry Kingston said...

Jim,
I second your thoughts as it would be great to see one up close and see the inter workings of one.
A land mark wagon and one exist today.
Harry in Texas

4pawfan said...

If anyone knows what happened to Jim Caldwell's notes and photos after his murder, the answer will be there. I was contacted by Jim in 1971 or 1972 when I was in high school to inventory and take photo's of the wagons Judge Hofheinz had purchased to start a circus section to Astroworld. Mel Miller was working for the Judge after leaving rbbb and he was very nice to let us go out and measure and take photos of the wagons there a couple of times. There was a seat wagon in the group (really bad shape) and I measured it and took photos of where the -H- frame setup was used to raise and lower the deck. Its been along time ago, but there was a power take off on the wagon, and they used the surplus army jeeps they had to do this. This went to a screw type device. ( if you can think of how a screw jack from a car works, this is how I remember the floor where the anchor points were positioned) I took a couple of rolls of 35mm black and white photos of all the wagons plus the pages of notes regarding the wagons. Some of the wagons had different plates wired to them I guess when they were moved in Sarasota from wq to Goodmen's, and I had written that information down for him as well.
I didn't keep a set of these photos or copies of my notes as it wasn't what I was interested in as I was more of a fan of the earlier wooden wagons. And in my mind, they weren't going anyplace. Of course the Judge had his stroke a year or two before this (1970?) but that wasn't his only problem. With the problems of the oil embargo and interest rates going sky high with the recession in this period, he was done, and lost control of everything in about 1975.
I was away to school and came home over the holidays a few years later to find the company that purchased Astroworld had sold off some of the front part of the park's property to a Toyota dealership and the wagons were gone.
Jim would later do a story in the model builder's before his death ( LCW Jan-Feb 1981 ) but I don't remember any of the seat wagon photos being in the article. p.j.

Dick Flint said...

I recall that Chappie Fox engineered a deal with Earl and Betty Schmid to buy a portion of the Caldwell collection so that some Caldwell items could get to Baraboo. Earl and Betty weren't too happy with what they ended up having and found it a challenge to sell enough to recoup their investment (they had a lot of those fake letterheads!). What it was that Chappie wanted is unknown to me. Earl always shook his head side to side about the deal but with a slight smile of "admiration" for Chappie's skill in "hoodwinking" him into the deal!

4pawfan said...

Thank you Dick for the information regarding Jim's material. Again, as I recall, Betty Jean sold some items from Jim's collection about ten years ago or so. But it wasn't his wagon files or photos of them. If I get back to Baraboo someday, I would like to see the material. Any idea where the models went? p.j.

Bob Cline said...

Jim Caldwell was a good friend. We both were part of the Ohio Model Builders Rings. My folks visited Jim and his 2nd wife in Florida a couple times as I did over the years. I never knew he was murdered. I was told he died of cancer.

Betty and Earl Schmitt garnered the Paul Caldwell collection. Are you sure about Jim's stuff?

Bob