There were a couple of arrivals this month on the interchange track.

First was an Overland Baldwin AS-16 nicely painted with the internal drive. The drive on the models with fuel tanks are through the fuel tanks. When the tank is removed, the gear tower is exposed. Not so on this model. This one came in a trade worked out at dinner in Chicago this past April. It a fine looking model to start with but there are a couple of things to adjust to make it more accurate for 1952.

Next up is a long awaited Central Locomotive Works PRR RT-624. This project started as a run of the CLW Baldwin DT 6-6-200 kit being custom built by Lou Houlemard, the owner of CLW.

Some of the PRR modelers pointed out the differences between the original kit and the PRR version of the locomotive, the RT-624. So Lou had new art drawn up for the PRR version and had new etchings made for the PRR locomotive. Lou offered the locomotives with or without Dynamic Brake and with or without Trainphones.

The drive is built by Jay Criswell of Right-O-Way and was set up for Proto48. It runs nice an smooth and quiet just set up for DC running. I still need to paint, decorate the model and install the DCC into this, but I’m very pleased with this custom built locomotive.

Having grown-up in the New Jersey suburbs around Philadelphia, I saw a lot of Baldwin locomotives in the area and they are a favorite of mine.