Helen Tucker

Photo of Helen Tucker at Lemon Creek Bridge in BC courtesy of Doug Wilson.

The following memorial  appeared in the April 1993 issue of Branchline.

In Memoriam. Helen Grace Tucker, P.Eng. (BRS Director)

"It is with the greatest regret that we inform the membership of the untimely death of Helen Tucker on February 12, 1993, after a lengthy and horrible battle with cancer.

Helen was an active member of the Society who will be sorely missed. Her work in an organizational role at the shop will be remembered for she, as a professional engineer, was organized, methodical and analytical, as well as practical.  She will remembered for her equipment drawings and sketches and her accurate estimates of the material required fro complete a job.  She will be remembered for her sense of humour, and her ability to exchange quip for quip with the best of us.  Her absolutely filthy coveralls, which the guys threatened to steam clean, with Helen in them of course, are legend.  She will be remembered for her procurement of tools and equipment with diligently collected Canadian Tire coupons.

Helen's ability to become "one of the boys" on our famous trip with steam locomotive 1201 from Ottawa to Saint John, N.B. in June 1989 will long be remembered by the other nine of us who were honoured to have her as a fellow crew member. She was a real hit with the CP and Canadian Atlantic Railway officials and crews alike who were taken back at BRS's lady "fireperson" in the cab of 1201, and in CP's and CAR's bunk houses.

At age 49, Helen has been taken away from us. She may gone she'll not be forgotten." (Duncan du Fresne).

Helen was the Dirty Hands Club Founder and also held the Secretary position on the Society's board.

Helen's professional career was as an Engineer with the Vehicle Dynamics Laboratory of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

At the NRC, Helen was a co-inventor of a Valve, a Flowmeter and a Viscometer. Below is a listing of the three patents she held with her colleagues.

Helen worked in diverse areas as Maglev systems, control systems for dynamometers, wheelchair stability experiments, and a major wheel and brake testing facility. (reference: Branchline July-August 1987)