Hobbies & Crafts
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Welcome to CJ's home page! This will be an attempt to document the trials and tribulations of building a model RR. My RR is called the Alabama Central. Back in the early part of the twentieth century the road was built to service various coal mines northwest to southwest of Jasper, Alabama. The road would service these mines and bring the coal down to interchange with the Southern RR line than is near Jasper. Although the line never got much bigger than twelve or so miles long, it remained prosperous until after WWII, when it was abandoned. There was at several times in Alabama history, at least 3 if not 4 other Alabama Centrals. They were never in service at the same time and were never in the same locations within the state boundaries. Reality Hard times came onto the railroad with the Great Depression, and by the end of WWII, the coal traffic wasn't profitable enough to sustain the railroad and the line was soon abandoned.There is currently one old locomotive preserved on the campus of Walker State Junior College in Jasper Al, and supposedly one is resting on its back halfway up the mountain along the old roadbed. The loco was abandoned in place, and over the years, the roadbed got washed out from under it and it rolled down the mountain. This has not been confirmed. Also, according to the October 1943 ORER, The Alabama Central owned no cars for revenue service! I do have a picture of a prototype AC caboose, and it was one of the old SRR wood cabooses. Concept of the Model Railroad Agents for a mining company found new coal reserves, that were easy to get from the ground for the road to haul shortly before the war, and being some shrewd cusses, they first bought all the stock in the RR they could for just pennies on the dollar. Then they announced the discovery of the new coal fields, which caused the stock to skyrocket in price. Result was they became filthy rich, built new lines and made even more money. Their little railroad became a giant in the Southeast, with lines from Little Rock, Ar to Jacksonville Fl, via Selma, Alabama and points north and south of this trunk. They bought even more locomotives and cars to deal with ever expanding traffic, but never bought anything new. They surely did love the skrill of the bagpipes, in other words, they wuz cheap!!! They bought whatever used was on the market and brought it home to be rebuilt by the road's mechanics. The Chief Mechanic, Crusty Orench, was a grumpy cuss himself, along with his crew, kept all the locos in great condition and working like new. His able assistants, Yassir Itsa Flat who ran the wheel shop, and Slomedown Milosovich, who was in charge of the car and brake shops, kept the equipment in top notch shape. Because of their efforts, the road remained steam powered up to the early sixties. Rolling Stock The model ACRR is a mixture of my primary love for the Southern RR in its steam days after WWII, and also of several locos that the SRR never had, but I like anyway. At one time my "roster" consisted of over 100 engines and approximately 800 cars. I realized that there would be no way to properly maintain, display, or store these locos and cars. So over the past 15 yrs, I have cut my roster down to just 23 steamers, mostly brass, and 6 powered diesels, with 3 of these Hobbytown chassis's. There are several unpowered B units to go with the powered units. A couple of these remain unpainted at this time. You may ask, why so many prototypes from other railroads? How else can I justify the use of locos that are SP, Ma&Pa, N&W,(2-8-8-2) and C&O,(2-6-6-6) in origin. Well, most of these are locos that I like and the SRR never had. Locos that are from "other" railroads are all painted as Alabama Central locos. There are even some "hybrids" from kits and such, that really have no prototypes but are reasonable facsimles close to Southern or other prototypes. Two of these engines that I highly modified, turns out to be real, real close to actual steam engines. I have been rebuilding these engines periodically just for fun over the years and made an interesting discovery. I accidentally came across an old Prototype Modeller magazine. There was an aticle on properly detailing a MDC Harriman 4-6-0 to be a true SP Texas Divisions engine. It turns out that except for a few details, both of my 4-6-0's match the detailed models in the magazine! Other models include kit builts, (Hobbytown chassis, Bowser, and even an old American Locomotive Company 2-8-0), kitbashes,(the previously mentioned MDC's), and a semi-scratched 2-8-0. All of my locos have been painted by me, and most have been remotored and/or regeared with a good amount of redetailing. They all run extremely well and all but the smallest will pull the studs out of the wall. (One does have a tendency to sound like a sewing machine no matter what I have done to it!) All of my cars, (over 300), are built by me from kits or scratched, with many of the kits having many additional details added. There was one RTR car, but as of Feb 2009, 3 more RTR joined the roster. Inside here, in the future, there will be pics of the layout under construction, modelling projects, proto photos etc. I hope you watch for more updates and keep coming back! |
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