Co-founder of Bowser Manufacturing passes away

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I was just checking the Bowser website and saw that Lew English,Sr. has passed away. He was 93.

He co-founded what is the current Bowser Manufacturing with his wife Shirlee in 1961. He leaves behind his wife, Shirlee and four children, ten grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and 3 great-great-grandchildren.

My condolences to the English family and friends.

2

That sucks…I met him a few years ago at the old store location…nice guy…now the store is in the first floor of Bowser mfg.

3

Would that be English as in English Model Railroad Supply?

Requiescat in pace

4

My condolences to family & friends. Only 93? All the proof you need that a happy heart leads a long life. I haven’t bought one yet, I’m thinking I’d like to try my hand at a kit; but Bowser is an industry standard by which all others are judged. Ya gotta be proud of having achieved that, in one lifetime.

5

Yes it is. The family operates both the store and the manufacturing company. Lee English is the current owner.

6

I had the distinct pleasure of being introduced to a gentleman identified as a “Bill Bowser, the founder of Bowser Trains” at a hobby shop in San Berdoo, California in 1968. I understand that English had come into possession of the company through purchase a few years before this time…While stationed in Mass in the mid-60s I had encountered several of Bowser’s brass models owned by fellow club members. They were fine running lokes if just a little on the noisy side compared to the current brass models being imported from Japan. My first kit was a K-11 Pacific which I had purchased at that same hobby shop a few months previously; by that time, of course, they were being manufactured by Mr English at his plant in Pennsylvania and were made from cast metal. Mr English is to be commended for keeping the Bowser company – along with Penn Line, of course – alive for these past four or five decades. It is too bad that they are no longer producing Bowser’s steam locomotive kits… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My condolences to the family.