It is with great sadness that we report the death of one of our founder members, Noel Braymer. He left this life on Saturday, April 18, at his family home in Dublin, Ireland, after some years of struggle with dementia.
Noel was born March 22, 1952, in Pasadena California, the fourth of five children. He went to school at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, and took a degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Noel was something of an enigma. He was an intelligent and hardworking man but never pursued a conventional career, and after university gravitated to photography, working at a studio in west Los Angeles. He did however give himself wholeheartedly to the cause of passenger rail in many capacities.
RailPAC began as Citizens for Rail California (technically it still is) and Noel was one of the original members in 1979. After the group split in 1984 Noel became President of what became RailPAC, at the same time writing his President’s newsletter, the Blue Blazer, printed on blue paper! He stayed in that role until 1986 but his favorite activities were writing and photography and he combined those enthusiasms to keep the membership informed and to spread the word. The Blue Blazer continued until 1990 when it was superseded by the Quarterly Review. Noel stepped up again to become President after the untimely death of Alan Wimmergren in 2004 and remained in that role until 2006. He then devoted himself to the then new medium of the blog and the e-news, which he produced weekly as the NewsWire, gathering up passenger rail and relevant transit news from multiple sources, and adding to it some pithy editorials of his own. It was appreciated not only by RailPAC members but by many industry professionals and agency staff members.
Noel could be stubborn, he could be bombastic, he held very firm opinions, but his opinions were based on wide reading of the subject and listening to others. He made every effort to attend RailPAC events by train, both north and south, and was a stalwart member of our group in every respect. Every volunteer organization needs to have the likes of Noel on the team.
Noel suffered a serious bicycle accident while commuting to work at San Onofre, and that seems to have been the start of the decline in his health. He moved to Ireland to be with his family in 2022. Noel is survived by his sisters, Marian and Theresa, his wife Pauline, daughter Marissa and three grandchildren.
PD
