A New Year With Some New Additions (and some not so new)!

Greetings everyone and welcome to my blog! It's been a while since I've posted about the layout, and what better way to start with some new arrivals (and some new items that have not seen the light of day)!

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of the LIRR as I grew up on Long Island and spent close to 30 years out there. I do go and visit family, but trying to deal with the traffic on a weekend in the morning is still a battle. 

I was searching Ebay and a seller had a Bowser RS-3 #1552 new. However it was part of an estate sale and the bidding started out very low. It has DCC/Sound in it, so I placed a maximum bid. I based my bid off of the lowest price in the online dealer market plus shipping. A few days later I won the auction, still lower than my maximum bid. 

The engine arrived the other day. It was new; however the owner had put Kadee couplers on it, cut off the trip pin, and programmed it. The box also had a slight aroma of a smoker. Put it on the test track and ran it back and forth. Tested the lights, horn and bell. Looks and sounds great!

According to the trainsarefun.com website, the LIRR had 10 of these engines. 

Some background on the Alco RS-3 engine courtesy of Wikipedia...

The ALCO RS-3 is a 1,600 hp (1.2 MW), B-B diesel-electric locomotive manufactured from May 1950 to August 1956 by American Locomotive Company (ALCO) and its subsidiary Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW). A total of 1,418 were produced: 1,265 for American railroads, 98 for Canadian railroads, 48 for Brazilian railroads, and seven for Mexican railroads.

The RS-3 greatly resembled the RS-1 and RS-2,^[1][2] but it had 100 more horsepower thanks to its 12-cylinder, 1,600 hp ALCO Model 244 engine. It also had some changes to the fuel system and body shape.^[3]

Much like the RS-1, many RS-3s served for decades; some are still in use as of 2022.

I have LIRR RS-3 #1551 made by Atlas, however it needs to be upgraded to DCC. I'll get to it down the road...

Now we needed some passenger cars to put behind them. I had bought 3 LIRR passenger cars from a dealer (probably Willis Hobbies back in the day) made by Bethlehem Car Works, as they're associated with Intermountain Railway. 

The background on these cars are interesting, at least to me. I guess you can say there's a prototype for everything...

More information courtesy of the trainsarefun.com site...

LIRR P63 #8514-8516  Heavyweight Arch roof steam powered Coach with 38 seats Builder: Osgood Bradley

8514 ex-RDG 1238 Blt: 1922

8515 ex-RDG 1347 Blt: 1919

8516 ex-RDG 1458 Blt: 1914

Now that I have the engine to pull these passenger cars, it's the time to get them on the railroad as one of my excursion trains to run when I have some friends over, or when there's time during an operating session...

The trainset is a nice addition to the layout and will be parked on the siding at the Amtrak Station.

Thanks for reading!