Merry Christmas Everyone!

First snowfall on the PRSL:

One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

He never wrote a book,
He never held an office,
He never went to college,
He never visited a big city,
He never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born,
He did none of the things usually associated with greatness ,
He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty three, his friends ran away.
One of them denied him .
He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth

When he was dead,
He was laid in a borrowed grave,
Through the pity of a friend

Nineteen centuries have come and gone.
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race, and the leader of mankind's progress.
All the armies that have ever marched,
All the navies that have ever been built and sailed,
All the parliaments that have ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,   put together,   have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life!
Adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124)

Catching Up #3 - Couldn't Resist

I am trying to shave my engine (112) and freight car (576) collections by about 50% but I saw this beauty on an eBay estate sale and could not resist.

MicroTrains Reading FT set

It also gave me an excuse to let the Reading take over the Camden roundhouse with an F9, RS3, FA1, and an I10 consol sharing the spotlight.

Other post-September activities included jury duty and preparing/submitting an entry into Model Railroad Hobbyist's TOMA  module contest. Silly me thought that since I built my layout in modules I should be able to bang out an entry in about 20 hours. Well way, way more than a hundred hours later after writing, re-writing, rewriting,... picture taking, re-picture taking, re-picture taking,.. and arguing with my Word Master seminary buddy (Niel Bech) the entry was submitted and exhaustion settled in.

Here's hoping the entry meets their expectations, Probably won't know until April. The modules focused on Woodbury NJ where the PRSL's 3 branches (Millville/Vineland, Salem, and Penns Grove/Deepwater) all coalesced into a flurry or rail activity. Following is a prototype photo and my feeble attempts to imitate it.

Woodbury Millville to Camden local passenger train No.760. January 1951, R.L. Long photo, W.J. Coxey collection

Catching Up #2: Engine Maintenance

I have collected a large fleet (10) of Atlas Alco RS3s. I started with Pennsy units from the original Atlas release, and built from there because I needed multiple Reading units to faithfully reproduce their coal drag motive power on the PRSL. I also collected extras since that is the recommended chassis to do Shapeways' Baldwin AS-16s (the PRSL main motive power). I need 4 but Shapeways painting (and chassis shaving) is beyond my capabilities but somewhere down the road I may find someone willing to do the work in trade for some of my vast selection of excess freight cars and buildings.

Anyway besides the 3 differently numbered PRR RS3s I had a lot of multiple engine numbers. Removing the numbering with alcohol was easy. I renumbered one of the PRR units successfully and butchered one of the Reading renumberings. Fortunately one of my operating crew volunteered to do the rest.

I also replaced the PRR shell on an Atlas FA1 with a Reading shell I acquired giving me a pair. Removing the numbering on that unit was not as successful but I picked at the last digit enough that it could possibly be a 3 instead of a duplicate 5.

All the units except the ones waiting to be renumbered have been treated with Doc O'Brien's Grimy Black pastels to remove the sheen. (My weathering capabilities are severely limited by being partially color blind. Therefore I ignore most of the 10 pastel bottles and only use the ones with "black" or "rusty" on their label.) I also worked on all their trucks with a mixture of black, rusty brown and rusty red. I found that mixing the pastel powders with a little water creates a paint that sticks well to the outer truck frames.

This whole project started by removing the shells to lube the power mechanisms. The units were old and noisy (from the beginning). They are now all lubed (and still noisy). I also replaced all rapido couplers with MicroTrain pilot conversions.

I still have one RS3 that has defied my efforts to remove its shell (and yes I have the instruction sheet for all the good it does). I also have managed to accidentally drop and thereby disassemble two trucks and now I understand why the manufacturer suggests acquiring new ones instead of trying to put the gears on the original trucks back together.

Throw in some geeps and yes my motive power fleet now looks more realistic (read less shiny) and more functional.

And yes I just had to put a Reading FA1 temporarily at the head of WY840 returning empties from Deepwater.

An un-grimed GP38 between 2 "grimees"

It''s Has Been A While & Op Session #9

It's been awhile since the last post and I'll try to catch up with a couple of posts in a row.

First of all we had an operations session (#9) in September with my regular crew (pictures below) which was highlighted by me passing out while talking. I regained consciousness with 8 eyes staring at me and them trying to decide if they should call 911. My wife is a nurse so we went that route. Evidently my blood pressure was way down (falling as low as 60/40 during the next few days). The doctor has since removed the medication I had been taking (for years) for high blood pressure and that has solved the initial issues. Of course, now I am recording high blood pressure and getting mild headaches. So the medical folks have to decide which way they want to kill me as we go forward.

As I lay on the couch downstairs, I was pleased to hear all the laughing going on in the loft. The crew had a good time running trains. Of course when I returned to the layout the next day it was difficult to find any cars in the sidings that had matching waybills. I don't even know who to blame. I guess I will just give them all lots of demerits. 😈