By Dan Peters
It is with great sadness that I have to inform you of the passing of Woody Matthews. Woody passed away Tuesday, January 19th. I do not have any details on services at this time.
For all those of you who might not know Woody’s background, he was a lifetime NMRA member, involved with the Fourth Division for a long time, a lot longer than me.
He won the Fourth Division “Man Of The Year” Award in 1966. Now known as the “Golden Grab Iron” Award. ( At that time, the 4th Division was known as the “Evergreen Division”. The name got changed when the NMRA formed “regions” and our division was assigned to the Pacific Northwest Region. I think that was in the 70’s. At that time PNR changed division names to numbers. )
Woody started the Science Center show. He was the first show chairman for 10 or 15 years, until Lou Toppano took over for him. Woody has been in O gauge for as long as I’ve known him, almost all that time in 2-rail “O Scale” (as opposed to 3-rail “O Gauge”).
He used to wear a cap with the slogan : “O Gauge, The King Of Gauges”.
When the module program was started in 1988, Woody and 2 other modelers built a set of 2-rail O Scale modules. Once they had 4 straight modules up and running, the division financed the building of 4 corner modules – that was the first completed circuit of modules in any scale. The O Scale module group disbanded in the 90’s when the other 2 members dropped out because of health problems. Woody is a retired Certified Public Accountant.
Dan
I will really miss Woody. He was a great wealth of knowledge on Lionel trains, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and firearms. He always was at the Pacific Science Center train show and the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society meetings. You could always count on him to remember various archaic facts about the 4D, NMRA, or the Pennsylvania Railroad. He really knew his stuff!
A fine gentleman, he will be missed. The BEMRRC club were with him and his group with the O modules.
Woody was a founding member of the PRRT&HS Pacific Northwest Chapter. He never missed a meeting or outing and he was an active participant. We all looked forward to seeing him at the meetings. He was also a firearms expert and he helped me with several antique rifles I have.
I’ll personally miss his company as will the Chapter’s members. He’ll be missed.
Woody’s O scale modules were the first memories I have of the Science Center show. He was at all of them. A very quiet guy and he will be missed.
Woody’s Passion was the Pennsylvania Railroad. I remember him at he PRR meetings at the archive building in Burien, he was always there. I invited over to my place to see the Walthers HO Broadway limited train I was running, his reply: “I’ll bring my magnifying glass” He will be missed. Dave