The East Penn Traction Club, Inc.

Charlie Long

Like most people I started in modeling with a Unique Art tinplate O-gauge train at Christmastime when I was three years old in 1951. I later graduated to combined 4’x 6’ & 4’ x 8’ platforms in the basement with a used Lionel set and an extensive collection of Plasticville buildings. About 1961 in junior high school I met Bruce Elfreth, an accomplished modeler who is now in Florida, and he introduced me to the traction side of the hobby. About the same time I converted to HO. It also helped that at the time I lived about three blocks south of the PTC Luzerne depot and Bruce lived about three blocks north of Luzerne. My current HO trolley layout depicting downtown Philadelphia in the early 1950s was started in 1966 and after three moves it is still evolving and under construction. I remember going with a group in Ed Torpey’s van to the founding meeting of the East Penn Traction Club at John Derr’s house in the early to mid 1970s. For much of the 1970s and 1980s I was active with the museum operations of Trolley Valhalla and Buckingham Valley Trolley Association at Tansboro NJ, Jobstown NJ, Buckingham Valley PA & Penns Landing. I am currently the Treasurer of the Electric City Trolley Museum Association, the support group for the Museum operation in Scranton, PA. After retiring from Bell Atlantic in 1999, I was able to take on the Secretary/Treasurer duties of East Penn.