Warren Michael Scholl, 77, Lenexa, Kansas passed away Sunday, July 28, 2019 at home. Friends may call 10:00am-11:00am Thursday, August 8 at Porter Funeral Home, 8535 Monrovia St., Lenexa, Kansas. A brief memorial service will be held at 11:00am for those who wish to stay. Burial, with military honors, will be at the Leavenworth National Cemetery, 150 Muncie Road, Leavenworth, Kansas at 1:30pm on Friday, August 9. The family requests no flowers and suggests memorial contributions be to the American Cancer Society.
Warren was born April 13, 1942 on the “nort’” side of Chicago, Illinois, son of Warren and Helen Tomory Scholl. He graduated Lane Technical High School in 1960. Warren’s passion was all things railroading, particularly the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. During high school and after graduation, he worked at a hobby shop in Chicago, eventually owning one himself. In 1964, he was drafted and went into the Army, serving two years in an artillery battery in Germany. There, he met up with a fellow railroad enthusiast and they spent their off duty hours “chasing” trains around the German countryside. He was honorably discharged in 1966, returning to Chicago. He returned to hobby shop work, then hired out with the Santa Fe in 1978 as a switchman, initially working in the Santa Fe’s Corwith Yard in Chicago. Warren eventually worked his way up to engineer, working in and out of Chicago, he then moved to Ft. Madison in the late 1980s. He became a full-time training instructor in 1992 and moved to the Kansas City area in 1996.
Warren retired from BNSF, the successor to the Santa Fe, in 2011. He continued to do railroad safety training as a contractor, training various shortline railroads and grain facilities on handling trains.
Warren also collected railroad memorabilia, model trains and was active in several railroad-related groups, such as the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society (as a lifetime member, also a recipient of the Honorary Life Member award for long-term service to the society), the National Railway Historical Society, the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, the Kansas Historical Society, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (also serving as an official), the Lexington Group (a transportation historical society) and the American Legion. And, though he grew up in Chicago, he was a lifetime NY Yankees fan.
Warren was preceded in death by his parents. Warren is survived by his wife, Susan Mercer Scholl of the home; sisters Marjorie Vaccaro and Joan Scholl, nephew Michael; sons David and Brian Scholl and granddaughter Allison Scholl, all of Chicago.