George "Jay" Jacob Lentzner

Missoula, Montana – Jay Lentzner died of natural causes January 1, 2024.  He was born on November 14, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois the son of George and Catherine Lentzner.  At an early age he developed a deep interest in railroads that lead to a life-long avocation and vocation.  He told his brother that his first memory of railroads dated to the late 1940s when he was standing on the platform of the Chicago & North Western passenger station at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin waiting for the arrival of the train with his Aunt Jane and being engulfed by a cloud steam as the locomotive pulled in.

He grew up near East Troy, Wisconsin where he attended grade school and high school.  The community owned a 10-mile electric railroad linking the town with the Soo Line Railroad at Mukwonago, hauling baby formula from Baker Laboratories, and building materials to the local lumber yard.  It was the last vestige of TMER&L, an interurban that ran from Milwaukee to East Troy.  Just a little oddity to most, but Jay loved it.  He also loved the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee interurban that linked Milwaukee with Chicago.  

Jay attended the University of Wisconsin where he earned a degree in civil engineering in January 1967.  The family raised chickens and Jay sold the eggs which paid for his first year of college.  He worked summers for the Milwaukee Road Engineering Dept. in Milwaukee,  Wisconsin that paid for the next year’s tuition.    

Following college, he enlisted in the US Army after being promised he would be assigned to the Army’s railroad division.  Instead, he was taught to drive a large army truck.  When they asked, “who can type?”, he raised his hand and became a clerk.  Jay soon learned he was to be included in the 25% of the base that was being sent to Vietnam.   During the Tet Offensive when his base was shelled, he survived unscathed.  A two-week R&R gave him the opportunity to visit Japan and experience railroading there.

With his military obligation fulfilled, he was employed as a civil engineer with the Milwaukee Road on April 1, 1970, and assigned to the Dubuque & Illinois Division at Savanna, Illinois thus beginning a 29-year career working a variety of positions in Perry, Iowa, Austin, Minnesota and Tacoma, Washington.  As Assistant Division Manager Maintenance Non-core West in Deer Lodge, Montana he supervised the closing of the western portion of the Milwaukee Road following its bankruptcy.  The Soo Line Railroad acquisition of the Milwaukee in 1985 saw him relocating to Minneapolis as Engineer-Environmental Control.  In January 1988 he accepted a position as Design & Maintenance Engineer with the newly formed Montana Rail Link, Inc. in Missoula, Montana.  Jay was named Assistant Chief Engineer In October 1991, a position that he held until taking an early retirement in 1999 at age 54.  For the next 25 years much of his time and energy were devoted to preserving railroad history and photography.  Jay traveled to many events throughout the US and Canada, took thousands of photographic images and in the process piled up more than 800,000 miles on two Toyota pickup trucks.

He will be missed by his many friends and acquaintances.  If Jay were here, there is no doubt he could tell us the locomotive type of the one that engulfed him in that cloud of steam 74 years ago.  His knowledge of trains was deep and wide.   Jay is survived by his brother Caleb Lentzner, his niece, Michelle Lentzner; and Naomi Kasen, a grandniece.  

No service is planned, but there will be a celebration of Jay’s life at a later date.

There are two kinds of people, people that are remembered and people that remember them.  Jay is one of those who will be remembered for a long time.