Nostalgia & History > Seasons Greetings from "KRK" ---

To all my friends on Trainorders.com-- Seasons Greetings to all of you and your families and Best Wishes for a Joyful New Year in 2015. Thanks for all of your best wishes regarding my health problems;
I'm enjoying retirement now and just taking things a day at a time...
I hope you have enjoyed my "Stories from the Past" that I post on here from time to time!

Best Wishes to all of you!

Ken Shattock (aka 'KRK')

---

---

And to you, Ken.

Art

To priceless images. Happy Holidays Ken.

Good to have you back, Ken

Ken, You (and many others) are one of the treasures of TO, because of your many stories and history lessons. One question: with your SP heritage, how did you become known as Key Route Ken? Did you have a particular Key System connection, as you did with all things regards Oakland Pier? The Vulcan salute seems especially fitting here: Live long and prosper! It's a bit early in the day for this, but I'm lifting a Stein in salute to you as we speak! AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Merry Christmas to you Ken and thanks for your posts. Memories are great aren't they.
Looks like it's casual Friday for your Grandpa. No vest and tie today.

agentatascadero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ken, You (and many others) are one of the
> treasures of TO, because of your many stories and
> history lessons. One question: with your SP
> heritage, how did you become known as Key Route
> Ken? Did you have a particular Key System
> connection, as you did with all things regards
> Oakland Pier? The Vulcan salute seems especially
> fitting here: Live long and prosper! It's a bit
> early in the day for this, but I'm lifting a Stein
> in salute to you as we speak! AA

Regarding the "KRK" name: Let's go back a few years... Growing up in the famous basement in East Oakland, one of the frequent visitors was "Edward H. Siems" who, at one time, was CEO and Secretary-Treasurer of Key System Transit Lines. He bought one of my grandfather's locomotives for his son 'Fred', who usually went by 'Freddie' ... Ed died in San Francisco at age 93 in 1996. I learned a number of things about the KEY from him. Of course, I also rode the "A"-line many, many times with my grandmother. One of the GGLS members in the Live Steam club was "Louie Lawrence". Louis lived on 32nd Street in West Oakland just a short distance from the KEY's Yerba Buena Yard. He grew up around the KEY as a child and snooped around their yard as a young boy growing up. He had a 6 3/8" gauge track in his backyard. He also built a lot of the KEY 500-class wooden interurbans in 3/8" scale. They were beautiful. Don't know where they are today. Louie's friend was "Al Boyd" on Helen Street who operated A&K railroad materials (primarily Ties). He was the primary scrapper of the Bridge Railway. Through my personal friendships of these folks, I learned a tremendous bit about the KEY. This was enhanced by several visits to the home of Vernon Sappers on East 23rd Street in East Oakland.

After starting the "Key Route Group" website on Yahoo Groups, and telling folks about KEY this and KEY that, I was affectionately named "Key Route Ken"--(by John Stashik)... I liked it and it has stayed with me ever since! Hope this explains the history behind it!

KRK

We all have special memories of our grandfathers, but you were one of the luckiest boys in the world to have one with such a cool hobby, and incredible talent.

KRK,
Simply Happy Holidays! Thank you for the posts and pix.
Gonut