was the Jersey Central’s sprawling Elizabethport facility in the final few years prior to the Conrail startup. A rag-tag fleet of RS-3’s in a hobby
Alco S-4 locomotive: HO scale Mfd., by Bachmann Industries, Inc.,
1400 East Erie Ave., Philadelphia PA, 19124;
www.bachmanntrains.com. The sound was everywhere. It didn’t
matter whether you were over by the fuel, sand and ready tracks, the mas- sive shop building, either side of the sprawling classification yard or up near the approach to Newark Bay Bridge. Along with seagulls and the distant roar of the New Jersey Turn- pike there was the ever present and soulful background sound of Alco S’s and RS’s going about their work. Such
shop variety of paint schemes and a couple of nicely weathered S-2 switch- ers were the wheezing, whistling and kachunking song of E-Port when I roamed there frequently in the early seventies. The sound of them became indelibly stamped somewhere in the region of the hammer/anvil/stirrup of the inner ear. To this day, some 38 years or so later, I hear the rare chant of an Alco 539 or 244 engine and I’m immediately conjuring images of that once so special place to see trains on Newark Bay. Thanks now to the won- ders of the 21st century, I can hear a 539 in my layout room. I don’t want to be construed as a
model railroading luddite, but the ever so popular DCC and sound explosion which has become almost the norm of the hobby has not until recently en- tered my train room. My local NPR jazz station was the sound heard on my lay- out whenever trains were running. I’ve got a small shelf layout infinitely
more suited for one engine-one man operation than a layout of size and complexity to keep a fleet of locomo- tives and a crew active for a real oper- ating session. The railroad operates flawlessly on d.c., and Peco power rout-
www.okengines.com Erie Wood Caboose
• Undecorated Resin kit O4926 to 04975 series Also good for PM, C&O
$49.50 plus $7 S&H
318 Bonnie Vue Dr., Cranberry Twp, PA 16066
JJLModels.com
Check or money order to: JJLModels
www.thenarch.com RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 77
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