Waiting on the 2102

 A unique privilege and blessing is to be able to show young people something new that you know will fill them with wonder and joy.  And so it was this past weekend with the boys and the Reading 2102, the massive 4-8-4 restored beautifully to working condition by the Reading & Northern Railroad.  2102 now runs on its home rails in glorious fashion, leading trains alone up and down the valleys and hills of central Pennsylvania.  

I believe that big mainline steam is a religious experience for those of us able to be there and experience it in 2023.  Photos and video commemorate a moment but don't convey the sheer sense of overwhelming awe of the full experience.  If you can get out and see mainline steam doing its thing, DO IT - you won't regret it!  

Celebrations

When you have a chance to celebrate something, do it.

There has been a great deal to celebrate so far in 2023.   When NJ TRANSIT set up a series of events this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the railroad, a group of us took the opportunity to jump in with both feet.  

Many months of preparation, careful planning, and team building were required to set up the first major excursion in decades, which ran from New York Penn to Newark and down to Bay Head, and returned on the same route to Newark before going back to Hoboken Terminal.  That started us off on a series of three events that each required a lot of heavy, volunteer effort to coordinate.  

Electric to diesel: replicating the old power swap that occurred here until 1988

Hundreds and hundreds of excited onlookers - THIS is great public engagement!

Time-honored tradition of T&E communications

Thirty-six years and three weeks before these photos were taken,
Jack and I met on the first day of 5th grade....and on we go.
We used to dream about being part of things less grand than this.

The day following the excursion was a public display of most of the NJ TRANSIT Heritage Fleet along with other equipment that fit the bill. This was one that allowed family to join, and I had a great day there with my wife and kids!

The boys loved the display-with our logo at the entrance

EL U34CH 3372 and PRR E8A 5711 in afternoon sun,
while Kristen and Susie were across town at the festival

Pete & Teddy and my first choice for a true heritage unit

Teddy & Pete, this time with both of my big initiatives in the fleet

WE DID IT, guys!!!!

Finally, the following weekend was the annual Family Day celebration, again allowing me to bring family to a great event so we could all be together and enjoy the larger railroad family too.   

Abeles 'Clamily' 2023

As our world changes and as we are more and more exposed to everyone's latest buzz and every last piece of click-bait news from a commercialized media, there is more and more pressure - and temptation - to watch.  And in too many cases what we are seeing is something that is negative.  What is hard to keep in focus in that cauldron of media is that most of the negative headlines from the news or our friends is either ultra-rare, a one-off, or a pattern that we cannot affect.  How can we be more present, more positive?  How can we reduce anxiety and be more connected?

One way is to take opportunity when it comes to be part of something real.  Something tangible.  Events like this one are just that - a reason to come together for something good.  We can still do these things!

Manuscript #2 - Enroute to the publisher!

When I was in grade school, my least favorite of all assignments was a book report.  It took a lot of work, it stretched out over weeks and even months.  And so, if you'd told me back then I would be submitting an entire book manuscript I would have laughed and said NO WAY.  And if you then had replied that there would be two such submissions, I would have insisted there was a mistake and someone else must have done it.  

Well, Friday October 27 I wrapped up a fully-loaded thumb drive and sent it off to Waukesha, Wisconsin, the location of the Kalmbach offices, to the attention of the Editor.  The second book manuscript is on its way, due by contract November 4th.  It's and introduction and ten chapters, 29,970 of words, 203 photos and images by me and others.  This time the goal is to introduce modelers and hobbyists to the concept of railroad yard design and operation - a key point for nearly all model railroaders.

The book project sheds some light on the lack of posts earlier this fall, as I was putting all my available hours into that project.  I am excited about the fact that a book on this topic may reach more people than the last book on signals and interlockings, which was more focused on a smaller and more technical subject.  Only some modelers include signals.  But - nearly all have a yard.   

Somehow, I think my middle school language arts teachers are smiling, somewhere.

It's exciting, in any case!  Look for a release in the Spring of 2024!  

We Blink....and it's October

Another day, another commute.  It’s early, before dawn, and the grind continues. 

But at the moment the train around me slides through the chilly rain, the only noise the sound of steel wheels as they sheen along wet, curved rails, and the distant sound of the air horn from the head end over a background white noise of the conditioned air blowers inside.  I woke from an early morning nap to find nearly 80 other people in this car and none of them is making a sound.  

There’s something wonderful about riding a train as the world outside wakes under a curtain of rainfall.

Yes, it's a sort of grind working for operations on a big railroad.  But it's also a dream long chased to be working for a railroad at all, let alone in a job that allows me to create a vision and staff a department for the future.  

The long break in posts has seen a truly remarkable summer and fall.  We had visits to Central New York, Canada, and South Carolina with the kids, while hosting family from Australia for a week between those trips.  We visited Pennsylvania overnight on separate trips, hosted operating sessions and set up nights for a traveling group, hosted an 80th birthday party for my mother in law, and this was all while I was intimately involved with the NJ Transit 40th anniversary celebration and the three major weekend events that were part of it.  Oh yeah, and the book manuscript for the next Kalmbach Yard Book is due in November!

All of this stuff in reality is the stuff of dreams, things I wished I could have done at different times of my life - and now they are happening.  And so 'the grind' from that perspective is a wonderful and fulfilling thing.  The Grind translates into 'Living the Dream.'  

Thanks for being along as part of it!

Another Quiet Night

It's another quiet summer night for us here in New Jersey.  This has been a summer full of a tremendous amount of bustle, family trips and friendly gatherings, reunions and long weekends, time at the beach, lots of time working - some great and wonderful experiences, some really difficult ones.  Life is about trying to balance it all. 

There has not been sufficient time for quiet, but that is how things go when we are in our 40's, right?  Mid career, families, learning to be proficient or even beginning to master tasks in our hobbies or in our lives: finding ways to rise to the tasks at hand.  We can't choose the timing.  We can only do what we must to respond when opportunities arise.

I repaired - and replaced - some lighting tonight over on the M&E.  I saw this shot and figured I'd grab it, and then remembered a phone call from last night from a close friend about a distant but important friend who is fighting hard tonight.  Mike DelVecchio is a longtime titan in our hobby, a railroader and railfan, modeler and historian, and a good person.  He's a musician too, and an unassuming guy that has touched a lot of things that 40-something railfans would recognize.  A longtime employee of and then follower and fan of the Morristown & Erie, parent company of my modeled 'Minoa & Euclid', Mike was friendly to me from day one.  

Many wonderful tributes to Mike are out there, and I wish I could have joined the excursion in his honor last month where he was his old self:  smiling, friendly, garrulous, focused.  Family travels had me out of state while thankfully many closer friends of his attended.

Tonight, he and his family could use our thoughts and a prayer.  I made this image and immediately thought of Mike: how many nights did he push, forgoing a quiet evening for a safer move, or for one more tune at one of his gigs playing guitar?  He worked on the M&E 19, and now here it is resting quietly at Euclid, in 1:87.1 scale on the OC.  

May tonight be quiet and restful for Mike, and for all those who are fighting similar battles.  

Scenes from an Railroad that Operates - ''Round the Clock'

Night operations are a longtime part of the experience on the Onondaga Cutoff, and the August 2023 session was one that modeled September 30, 1994 from 6p overnight to 6a.  The railroad ran nicely and crews acted the roles really well, so I had time to make some images that came out good enough to share.  

Midnight at Onondaga Engine Terminal.  The light power from TV 550, the NYS&W interchange stack train, is tied down on the fuel rack behind a few sets of local power and the Mohawk Dispatcher has also pulled a route up on the mainline for a westbound on Track 2.

C39-8 6001 has a new crew onboard and the engineer is getting set up as the power idles at Island Yard around 0100 hours.  Auxiliary lighting and weathering are the only two things that can be done to visually improve a ScaleTrains engine!

Its work at Onondaga Yard complete, train SEEL (Selkirk, NY to Elkhart, IN manifest) builds his air at CP 280.  Lead locomotive SD40-2 6462 is on the point at 0230, the dead of night, and the crew is eager to get moving for their next crew change out in Buffalo, NY - by which time the new day will have dawned.  Once they're ready to pull they will call the Mohawk Dispatcher for permission west, and the train will get a signal to proceed. 

Speaking of the Mohawk Dispatcher, here he is!  Jack watches the display and listens to the radio as needed while Rich, who is sitting in the Trainmaster position, checks crew status ahead of upcoming departures.  

No matter how you cut it, though, it's the people that make a railroad work.  The best part of operations is the camaraderie of a group of people that make it run.  It takes a team, and that is exactly what we had.  This session included a cookout and picnic for the crew and friends, spouses, and families and we remembered to get a full group shot on the freshly finished patio area.  It was a great day. Awesome!

  

Organization in the Chaos

There's a lot to be said for the occasional cleanup.

Our hobby of railroading, including model railroading and rail photography, is one where we seek a break from the rest of our worlds.  When life is good, a break is a nice and relaxing thing.  When life is hard or chaotic sometimes the break is the only thing keeping us sane.  How much better are those breaks when you can jump in and get right to work?

If the workbench is a mess it is much harder to get right to work.  Recently I was searching and searching for detail parts I was sure I had in my inventory.  After a half hour of rooting around, I realized it was well past time to get organized.  The first step?  Laying everything out to get started.  

There's no one way to organize things like this; I organized first by manufacturer and then by category.  I decided to take the piles in the image and put like items together:  antenna, snowplows, MU hoses/MU receptacles, eye bolts/grab irons/lift bars, doors/grates/hatches, etc etc.  Not perfect, of course, but finally categorized in a way that should held avoid searching blindly.

In these humid days of summer, do yourself a favor and organize the workbench.  Your hobby breaks will benefit!