Weekend Photo Fun 10/2/15 HONGZ

The Lehigh and Hudson River Railway extended almost ninety miles between Easton, PA and Maybrook, NY. Although it enjoyed lucrative on line business, the road was best known as a bridge line carrier for traffic destined to New England via the connection with the New Haven at Maybrook Yard. Following the merger of the NH into Penn Central and the Poughkeepsie Bridge fire in 1974 which took the structure out of service, the L&HR's finances suffered greatly, resulting in the railroad's inclusion in Conrail in 1976. Prior to its downfall, the L&HR physical plant was well maintained, enabling road freights headed by multiple unit consists of ALCo locomotives to maintain a steady track speed of 45 MPH over the mainline. From a train chasing perspective, L&HR trains could be tough to keep up with.

 

Pictured for your review are two Lehigh & Hudson River units, RS-3 11 and C420 22, from my N scale roster. Both locomotives are Atlas models. The RS-3 is part of the company's "Classic" line while the C420 is a "Master" line unit. The Atlas RS-3 was first introduced in 1983 and is regarded by many as the locomotive which set a new standard with its combination of excellence in detail and performance for plastic models of North American diesels in N scale. The Atlas RS-3 was initially built by Kato but, following the separation of ties between Atlas and Kato during the 90s, a redesigned Chinese built version appeared a few years later. Among the most visible of improvements was the substitution of body mounted couplers for truck mounted swinging couplers which necessitated an ever so unsightly open pilot to allow for coupler swing on the first version. The full pilot on the later version improves the locomotive's appearance immeasurably. Both units feature slow speed motors which enable them to proceed at extremely slow speeds, adding to their appeal and operational versatility. They truly exemplify the quality for which Atlas has become known in the smaller scales.

 

Aa a point of interest, neither the 11 nor the 22 was still on the L&HR roster at the time of the Conrail start-up. The 11 was used as trade in material on a C420 order and the 22 was sold to the Essex Terminal Railway in Windsor, Ontario and later acquired by the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad to become the A&M 50. I believe our own Andre Ming (laming) is an A&M Engineer so he will hopefully enjoy this tidbit of information regarding one of his own railroad's locomotives.

 

Enjoy,

Bob

         

Full view of my N scale layout. Notice the Aurora Postage Stamp transformer to the right I had as a kid powering some accessories now.

A conversion of the AHM 0-6-0T to a 2-6-2T done many moons ago:

 

 

Rusty

Plenty of NYC area 70s and 80s era passenger action at the club. 

Great picture's everyone!

 

 

 

I finished restoring the G scale brass engine my Dad bought back in the 1980s.It would look cool painted like the Leviathon steam engine.I am selling the brass engine,too many other projects.