Schacter was a good friend of Vance Gerry, who was a veteran artist at Disney, he said. Gerry, who worked on “101 Dalmatians” and “Jungle Book,” collected antique trains for 30 years. He died in 2005 at 75.
“He wanted to keep the trains together,” Rosenberg said. “We agreed we’d take the train exhibit and keep it together.”
Schacter was familiar with the museum, because his collection of tin soldiers was shown there several years ago. He encouraged Vance Gerry’s widow, Mary Gerry, to donate the collection to the Burbank museum, Rosenberg said.
Mary Gerry will attend the unveiling and Schacter said she is pleased that the Burbank museum accepted the donation.
“She’s excited that it’s going to be in one place and not split up because it takes years and years to collect them,” Schacter said.
“They are abiding by his wishes, and that’s what makes it so interesting.”
There are more than 200 examples of historic trains and accessories that were made in the late 1930s to ’40s in Germany, England, France, Bulgaria and Romania.
Rosenberg and his wife, Elaine, sorted and cleaned the pieces and labeled them for the exhibit in the museum’s Cunningham Room.
“It’s taken about one year to get the display all set up and it looks very nice,” Rosenberg said.
Board member Gary Sutliff made a wooden board platform for a display he placed over the stairwell in the room so it wouldn’t take up floor space, he said.
There are five other wall displays.
The brand names on the trains in the collection — many that are still around today — include Hornby, Billerbahn, Marklin, Brimtoy and Chad Valley.
