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Journal heliocentric's Journal: It’s a miracle (a train story) 8

Journal by heliocentric

So, if you recall, in this previous journal I was talking about a friend who made by hand four engines. You may also recall that two of them were cosmetically altered leaving only two of the style I so desperately admire. Of the two, my good friend Bob owns one. The other appeared lost to history.

Built in or around 1965 it was given to a man in the late 1960s, who had a change in jobs and was forced to move to Kentucky. Following another move (suspected to be within the region, but not sure where) everyone that I know lost touch with this lucky engine owner.

The builder spent the remaining years of his life trying to track down this one engine. Not so much to re-acquire it, but just to learn whatever happened to it.

The builder had started several more of the engines, but when his eyes got too old he consciously stopped working. Rather than sacrifice quality he'd sacrifice quantity, even though he promised several people engines when he finished more.

Following the death of the builder several of these people tried to track down the missing engine. Two even joined forces to take the remaining parts pile and try to at least complete one, using the known engine is an original to work from.

The train treasure hunters would track down every single photograph of a model engine of this style to see if it could be the lost engine. I even got into the game in the past 5 years or so, using the internet to track down modelers whose photos appeared in magazines and ask them some questions about their locomotives in an attempt to find the engine.

Well, guess what I found on eBay?

Yup, the lost engine. Guess when said auction ended? On my birthday!

So, the lost engine has been returned. She sits in the living room right now. She needs fresh paint (was stripped by the seller, a model-train estate broker who bought out the collection from a passed-on train guy in Ohio, just on the Kentucky border), and she hasn't yet been put on the rails and tested.

That will come soon. She will also get the chance to be reunited with her sister engine and a whole lot of people who haven't seen her in roughly 30 years.

The only people thus far to really know about me having her would be my family and Bob. I figure I'll have to plan some sort of unveiling to the others soon. Tomorrow I'm going to meet a man who paints engines like this one and see if I can talk him out of retirement from painting to restore this special loco.

The seller that I got the engine from suggested we write a story about this and submit it for one of the model train magazines. While we may just do that, right now I want to get her back to home rails and let the Reading ride again.

Oh, and I bet you want to see some pictures, don't you.

Well, following are several of her that I took, some with her posed with my 3-Rail Lionel engine of the same type. It should give you an idea of what it will look like painted.

Pair
Under the hood
Drivers
Side by Side
Flip the top off
Motor

The detail level is unmatched: there is a working suspension system, chains on the tender trucks, cast bronze tender floor with ribs in it - something on the real engines but never seen unless you turn the tender over, a detail no sane person would bother modeling.

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It’s a miracle (a train story)

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