This is extremely sad news. George Walker was one of the kindest, calm, and most knowledgeable men in the heritage railway industry.

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I heard third-hand that he fell through a skylight on the Cromwell Road shop building roof.
Whatever it was, I just hope it was quick. I didn't know the man but considering his position within TVRM, I'd bet he was good at what he did and decent to others. I've never met single TVRM person who was anything but first rate.

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I am saddened by his passing.

This evening, the Chattanooga Times Free Press posted an article about the accident, the investigation into it, and his career at TVRM:
Longtime Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum employee killed in shop accident

About 10 years ago, the flat roof on a school gymnasium here in town was being torn off and replaced. The old roof was torn completely off in a few places and sheet metal of some sort was laid across the opening in places.

Well, the business owner... the contractor himself.... was walking across the roof and stepped on some of the sheet metal. The metal folded under his weight and he plummeted to the floor... it's a two story building.

A heating/air contractor friend of mine, in the building working, came walking around a corner in the gymnasium and came upon the man... just after he hit the ground. Took him a bit to figure out what he was viewing, and when he figured it out he immediately called 911. I happened to be driving down the street near the school when the scene was unfolding... and in no time a life flight helicopter landed in the intersection of two streets by the school, to haul the victim to a trauma center in a nearby city.

He didn't make it. Poor guy...

Very sad news. I had the privilege to work with George for nearly ten years. He mentored many young men who wanted to go railroading.

I had the opportunity to work briefly with George in 2003, while TVRM was supporting the renewing of GSMR 1702's tires and and crank pins. I very much appreciated his helpful and knowledgable demeanor towards a young stranger in the business. Those conversations led to the right repairs for 1702's running gear, which ended up with new axles and boxes as well. I wish you smooth track and clear signals, George.

The old Chicago and Alton (later GM&O/ICG) shops in Bloomington IL, where I believe the first Pullman car was built, was a huge complex of mostly empty buildings by the time I first saw it in the mid-eighties. Included was a freight house that was open until the late 1970s/early 1980s, and at some point the freight elevator stopped working, so they cut a square hole in the second floor and used a forklift to load pallets up there. By the time I saw this complex most buildings back in that area were unused, and vandals had started to open up the buildings, including the freight house, but the windows were still in, and luckily I was used to crumbling railroad buildings (and young but not completely foolish as well) and saw that hole in the floor when I was poking around back there. The yardmaster at the time had worked in the freight house and told me the story of the broken freight elevator.

Within around fifteen years of that time, when I was living in another state, a young "urban photographer" was poking around back there himself in what by then was completely vacant buildings just a few years before they were demolished, but the windows were all boarded up, and he must not have seen the hole and fell through the floor and broke his neck, they didn't find his corpse for quite a while after his family started looking for him. I believe I saw a story in Trains magazine about it.

Chattanooga Times reported that TVRM is being fined and cited for multiple safety violations in connection to this accident.

As an industry we HAVE to take safety seriously.

Thanks, I tried to link to the article but I clearly failed!

The link worked for me at 3:00pm Pacific Time

The great and terrible irony is that -- as mentioned in the story -- multiple sets of fall-protection PPE were provided in the shop, and probably religiously used... when accessing equipment being worked on. Evidently the same was not extended to the outside of the shop building itself... this is I think a cautionary tale for a large number of preservation facilities.