A Long Friendship
Susanville hosts a true English craftsman
by JEFF FONTANA
True friendship. It can withstand life’s changes through time and even shorten the miles between the distant cities of our planet.
Few in Susanville know that better than Verne Crane, a longtime local resident who cherishes a 30-year friendship with an 83-year-old Englishman he met through correspondence 30 years ago.
And the value of Crane’s friendship has been shared with more Lassen residents recently, as Jack Davies visited the area and shared his warmth, charm and fascinating stories of living.
A common fascination with precision machines brought Crane, Lassen County’s foremost builder of intricate scale model steam locomotives, and Davies together. Davies has been constructing the miniature locomotives from the ground up since 1925.
“He wrote a letter to ‘Model Engineer’ magazine and I answered it,” Davies relates. “He’s a man after my own heart.”
Davies became taken with Crane’s desire to build the miniature steam engines despite living in an area where there were no other builders who could provide advise. And what’s more, he indicates, Crane, like himself, had to become a self-taught engineer to design and fabricate exact scale replicas of the smoke-belching locomotives that once rumbled across America.
“I’m an engineer, he’s a school master,” Davies says of his Susanville friend, who spent years in the administration of Lassen County schools.
Davies is a resident of Egham, a town in Surrey, 18 miles from London, where a passion for machines and model building make the United States appear pale by comparison. Within 25 miles of his home there are 30 miniature railroad tracks, many more than 1,000 feet long, where steam engine builders can “drive” their creations.
Crane, by contrast, runs his engines on his own 300-foot track that meanders through the front and back yards of his Sacramento Street home. A trip to Sacramento is necessary if he wishes to run his steamers on a longer “club” track.
Davies’ work in the exacting hobby comes as almost a natural progression to the man who was introduced to the awesome power of war machines at the tender age of 16.
He was serving with a maintenance unit of a seaplane wing in the Royal Navy when World War I erupted, and honed his skill with machines throughout the war.
He also got a first taste of the horror of warfare at an early age — only one year
Image Captions
[Top Photo Caption]:
Davies’ daughter, Alice, puts the classic J. W. Bowker through its paces.
[Bottom Photo Caption]:
DAVIES’ most recent creation is a one and one-sixteenth-scale model of an 1898 Stirling Single once used on Britain’s Great Northern Railway.
The Lassen Advocate — October 7, 1983 3
Through Steam
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later while his unit was stationed in unkirk.
“A 15-inch shell landed in 11 ton of ammunition and I was looking right at it,” he recalls. “It blew us all to pieces.” Several men in the unit were killed and many more were wounded, he says.
Davies turned his mechanic’s skills to crafting precision engines on his return home from Navy service in Egypt in 1925. Construction of a 1½-inch-scale model of an Aveling and Portar steam tractor became his first project. The work spanned 20 years, the start of a family and another horrifying world war.
His mechanics’ abilities
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were again tapped for a war effort in 1939 and Davies served the duration of the World War II conflict as a specialist in the inspection, testing and repair of tanks.
Though the war still brings painful memories and emotion to his voice, Davies recalls his job as “one of the best I’ve ever had.”
His eyes are bright as he recalls tinkering with the American Sherman V tank, a vehicle he calls “one of the best armored vehicles of the war.” A 30-cylinder engine, comprised of five banks of six cylinders each, powered the monster vehicle, he says.
Davies’ aptitude for engineering led to his
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leadership of a research division in which standard armored vehicles were converted to “deep sea fording vehicles,” capable of operating nearly fully submerged. It was a job he kept until retirement in 1960.
Davies continued to spend his spare time in his machine shop, spinning out pistons, cylinders and shafts and fabricating boilers, tanks and steam lines for his models. He now spends more time than ever in the shop.
In all, he’s built more than 15 engines in three gauges (track widths) and various scales. They are much more than just models. They have true escalating value.
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One model engine could easily fetch 3,000 pounds (about $4,500) from a serious collector, he says.
The builder beams with pride as he flashes photos of his favorite, an exact replica of the J. W. Bowker, an 1875 model iron horse that once chugged along the tracks of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad in Nevada.
Eight years of work went into the engine which never fails to attract curious onlookers at the English tracks. Most builders in Europe concentrate on models of European-style, rather than American West locomotives, Davies explains.
Another creation has been christened the Verne Crane while still another bears the name Alice, Davies’ younger daughter.
“She’s the apple of my eye, really,” he smiles. Davies, now widowed, also has a
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son, Alfred, who lives in Kent and a daughter, Christine, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Davies can now add a variety of events and experiences of the American West to his life’s story. During his most recent, and second, visit to Susanville, he watched a wild horse roundup, visited the BLM’s wild horse facility, toured the Sierra Pacific mill and met an honest-to-goodness Western rancher.
He came away from a visit to the Hagata Ranch with a souvenir cowboy hat from Frank Hagata.
“It’s just great,” he says. “It’s well worn and it has dirt on it and everything,” he smiles.
He’ll return to his native England richer for the experiences. And several Lassen County residents are richer for having met him.
Chalk up another point for the value of friendship.
Bottom Image Caption:
Davies’ craftsmanship and attention to detail are shown in these examples of his work. All were built completely from sheets of steel, copper and brass in Davies’ machine shop, they are powered by steam boilers. At top left is a 1½ inch scale model of a 1902 Aveline and Portar steam tractor. Davies worked on the model from 1928 to 1945. At right is a British steam engine model, circa 1900. The model of the Lynton-Barnstaple Railway steamer also represents 20 years’ work. Below is the Verne Crane, a model of a 1935 era V-4 locomotive that served the London and Northwestern Railway.
Photos courtesy Jack Davies
The Cover Box:
The Cover
Susanville’s Verne Crane, left and England’s Jack Davies had a chance to renew their friendship and look over Verne’s miniature steam-powered locomotives, when the Englishman visited Susanville recently.
If you want to review specific technical parts of his builds, I can find historical details on:
- The Aveling & Porter steam tractor (spelled “Aveline and Portar” in the text)
- The Virginia and Truckee Railroad “J. W. Bowker” engine
- The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway steamers