Model Railroading > Live steam loses one of it greats.

Harry Bean of Oklahoma City, and previously of El Paso Tx passed away Oct 22, 2014 from cancer.

Harry was a prolific live steamer who only really got started after retiring from El Paso Natural Gas. He completed his life long ambition to get a locomotive in live steam 7.5" gauge. He got a man in Phoenix to build his dream of SP 2-8-0 #3420 to be just like the real engine retired in El Paso and on exhibit there. After some trials and problems he finally got it and rapidly became a traveling ambassador for the live steam community.

Harry took his engine to meets in Texas, Okla, Mo, Ill, Mich, Ga., Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, 2 provinces in Canada and I am probably leaving out some others. Harry fitted the engine with a speedometer/odometer that kept actual and scale miles and speeds. He kept written records of the engines travels. At the time of his death the engine had traveled OVER an actual 3700 miles, had been rebuilt once and had its second boiler.

Harry was a great friend of all who knew him. Even though his health had gotten poor in the last year he ran a train just over a couple of weeks before his death, at the Annetta Valley & Western track near Ft Worth.

Harry: may you have nothing but "hi green" old friend.

We shall all miss him greatly.

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A huge loss to our fratenity of live steamers--"highball, Harry"

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

A very thoughtful and worthy tribute

PGR94 Wrote:
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> A very thoughtful and worthy tribute

I agree well done tribute....

What a great looking engine. I wish I had built one when I was a bit younger.

What will be come of his equipment? What bothers me the most is in LS, a lot of the equipment gets put away in a garage, the other half passes on, and the kids do not want it, and they just disappear. There should be a directory that traces what happened to locomotive like this in the future.

I do think that I met him here in Oregon over the years at Train Mountain. The big thing that many don't think about is he lived his life and enjoyed it to the end running his engine. Not many others enjoy life as much as a live steamer. The picture of him working on the engine is a tribute to him and his hobby. May he rest in peace having lived his life enjoying what he loved.

Yes, Kudos to him and that is a beautiful engine. I like the Artsy-Fartsy photo: very, very nice.

Harry's son is also a live steamer. So don't worry about the engine going to waste.

Thank you for the nice things said about my post.

The picture: When I first laid my eyes on the darkness and the contrast of Harry and the rear of the tender I was aw-stuck by it. It is not my picture and I wish I could give credit to the person who took it and set up the most unusual contrast. But, his name is lost to me. To me the photo is somewhat akin to a performer on a dark stage being hi-lighted by a spot light.

Yes, Tom, it truly is a work of art. I may try that in Photoshop sometime with one of my photos in my next book.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com