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 near Jasper. Although the line never got much bigger than twelve or so miles long, it remained prosperous until the depression. Hard times followed and at the start of WWII, the coal gave out and the line was 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. Now for the fiction. Agents for a mining company found new coal reserves 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 new coal reserves, 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, 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 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, 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. Now back to reality. The model ACRR is a mixture of my love for the Southern RR in its steam days, and also of several locos that the SRR never had but I like anyway. How else to justify the use of locos that are SP, N&W, and C&O, in origin. As well as some "hybrids" that really have no prototypes other than thats how they got built. Models include kit builts, kitbashes, semi-scratched, and some brass locos. 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 some additional details added. There is one RTR. Inside here, in the future, there will be pics of the layout under construction, modelling projects, proto photos etc. I hope you enjoy! |
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