First Train

At long last, I've powered the rails and run a train for the first time on the ol' Longleaf Layout! Last month I went down to the local hobby shop and bought an Athearn Seaboard RS-3 that I've had my eye on for months. And of course, I couldn't come home with a brand new locomotive and not actually run it, so I bought an inexpensive Atlas powerpack so I could try it out. I cleaned off as much of the mainline as I could and clipped a couple of alligator clips from the pack to the rails. Lo and behold, it ran! Not only that, but it ran smoothly up and down the helix, pulling six or seven cars. That's a relief, because at about 2.3%, my helix's grade is a bit higher than conventional wisdom recommends. Here are some photos:

Here's the first train pulling through the grade crossing with the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay RR at Cottondale. Notice that Herman has moved his business here from Chattahoochee.

Here's a closeup of Seaboard RS-3 #1654 as it rolls through Cottondale. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to discover that this very unit was built by Alco in December 1950, so it's just a few months old here on my layout's Spring 1951 setting. By the way, this is a standard Athearn unit, and you can see even in this photo that the detail is far superior to Athearn locomotives from the 1980s when my brother Marty and I were active in the hobby.

Finally, an L&N caboose brings up the rear. This was a Christmas gift from Marty, and was the exact same model I was planning to get (practically the only L&N caboose currently available unless you go for an obscure craftsman kit). It looks great on the rails!

So there's the first train, a watershed moment. I've actually made a fair amount of progress on the layout since I last posted, and I also have some photos from a railfan trip along the prototype route, so stayed tuned for more new content in the next couple of weeks.