So, some back story. I built this railroad after the house fire 30+ years ago. The smoke damaged engines got NP paint and lettering. Not commercially done at that point. Ran into Bill, we became good friends over the years, he had a Lionel pike in a small bedroom. He helped with the scenery, saw what I did with track and wiring.
26 years ago, he added a 33’ X 13’ addition on his house, and WE built a world-class NP layout.
Three months ago, he called me up, said they’re moving to Tuscon, and it’s all coming out.
Took me two solid weeks.
I have close to 500 feet of GarGraves, 51 switches, two All-Trols, couple of Geeps, couple of steamers, all the wire (about 4,000 feet), huge industrial power supplies on a board (replace the ZW) and all the signal bridges and cantilevered signals. (including one soldered from two for 4-track coverage).
I have, free, the equipment I needed to finish the basement off, so I am.
Before, roughly looking east, scanned from an old print photo I had.
After. The fluorescent fixtures are all here, two installed so far. Realtor insisted they do can lights. Walls patched, repainted, new carpets.
We would always “loan” stuff to each other (he lived 1.9 miles away by road), so I had a couple of tenders he didn’t need, as he changed everything to make a better prototype appearance.
Last day of hauling stuff out, I find a pre-war 226E on the front seat of the Jag…asked him, since he had gotten it at York the previous October…and he said, hey, you’ve got the tender (long, die cast, six wheel trucks, with whistle) so now you have the engine, too.
and this is it, sitting on the relocated Bowser turntable.
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