OK:
Here's the second installment on the history of SHABBONA RR. Read it
and sleep
Bob Nicholson
SHABBONA RR 2
By: Robert Nicholson
The early '70's, 1972 through 1974. . .
. . .were years of learning and gaining experience in the world of S,
and shaking off the plentiful, inexpensive "shake-the-box" mentality
of HO. S was a world of limited availability that required time and
skill just to amass even a small roster of rolling stock.
In that context, I decided to focus a short line with one or two
small steam locomotives and a minimum of rolling stock. Fair enough,
but somewhere along the way that old "scattergun approach" to
acquiring stuff reared its ugly head and I acquired an A-B-A set of AF
PA's with the idea of painting them up in ROCK ISLAND passenger
colors. Then I found out the "ROCK" never had PA's. Prototype fidelity
is a great way to shoot down a good idea; I still wonder what they
would have looked like. I later sold them.
I scratch built a Columbus & Greenville caboose from plans in Model
Rairoader. With sliding side doors and three pairs of windows in the
long end behind the cupola, it had appropriate mixed train overtones.
SHABBONA RR now had a locomotive and four pieces of rolling stock, but
with no right of way acquisition or track construction in progress,
either, it was a long way from running its first train.
In early 1973, friend and fellow hobbyist Steve Rippeteau and I
photographed the 0-6-0, by now a 2-6-0, a Kinsman reefer and the C&G
caboose in an outdoor setting. A couple of months later, I showed the
photo to Don Heimburger at a Chicagoland S meet. I explained that the
SHABBONA RR was a short line bridge route between the Lehigh & New
England and New York, Ontario & Western, doomed forever to hauling the
car back and forth between them because they were defunct and there
was no way to interchange the car. I don't think he believed me, but
he ran the photo on the cover of the March, 1974, S Gaugian.
1973 was also when I first got to see the result of my efforts run on
a layout for the first time, on Hans Krause's layout when the
Chicagoland group met in his basement. Ol' #51 with a four car revenue
train and the C&G caboose bringing up the rear was impressive. Yes,
indeedy, SHABBONA RR was going to be a "mighty fine line". I went home
that night with dreams of my own layout dancing in my head. Little did
I know how far off that was!
I purchased another 0-6-0 and converted it to a 2-6-0, and it became
SHABBONA RR #52. Both engines also acquired Rex road tenders at this
time. #52 is still on the SHABBONA engine roster to this day, still
seviceable for special occasions.
In June, 1974, Steve and I headed for Montana to see the last day of
MILW's electrified operations. Seeing those big MILW electric
locomotives gave me a fleeting idea to electrify SHABBONA with AF
EP-5's painted orange and black. I say "fleeting", because that
prototype fidelity thing reared its head again, and another good idea
went down in flames. However, while driving an "all-nighter" across
Wyoming, I kept myself awake figuring out a way to make a 2-6-6-0
articulated locomotive from two Rex 2-6-0 chassis'.
I decided the 2-6-6-0 was unfeasible, but the fact that the cab deck
on a Rex 2-6-0, et.al., is about 1\8" higher than the tender deck
bothered me. Prodded again by prototype fidelity, I decided to lower
the locomotive cab and boiler 1\8" on the frame. Using #52 as the
guinea pig, I cut 1\8" out of the cylinder saddle and the cab support.
The operation was a success, but proved there are all kinds of ways to
procrastinate on layout construction - all you have to do is look! It
would have been a whole lot easier to put a new deck on the tender,
1/8" higher than the original.
More later -
Bob Nicholson
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