03-23-2014, 03:30 PM
I agree. The Keystone itself had an article by a guy who evaluated the 1361 after it had to be taken out of service, and it said it was long overdue for retirement in the 1950s, and wasn't really a fit loco to put back into service. Workmanship was poor when it was built, and trying to put the dome on the wrong way damaged the boiler, which showed up in the 1980s, which is a big reason they can't easily get it back into service. A recent book on the Panhandle said that by the late 40's, the PRR was regarded within the rail industry as a marginal, substandard operation. Looks like you saw the same thing.
The PRRT&HS was originally by and for railfan-modeler-photographers (the photographers weren't afraid to show a dirty engine!), but over time it came to be basically a PRR retired employees club, headed by an ex-PRR Penn Central "official". I told someone at the time that they needed to find a way to put that guy in a cage at the RR Museum of Pennsylvania so everyone would understand what went wrong with Penn Central!!
My uncle rose in the rail Industry to become a Class I CEO, and he worked at various times with (not for) PRR people, as well as for Alfred ("Mr") Perlman, who was definitely not PRR and was edged out of PC. My uncle had a particular black spot in his heart for PRR people.
But it was my first railroad -- born in Philadelphia, grew up in NJ and Maryland, rode it back and forth to school and so forth. I like to model it, and for quite a while I got good modeling info from the PRRT&HS. But more recently it's become a clone of the bad-old PRR.
The PRRT&HS was originally by and for railfan-modeler-photographers (the photographers weren't afraid to show a dirty engine!), but over time it came to be basically a PRR retired employees club, headed by an ex-PRR Penn Central "official". I told someone at the time that they needed to find a way to put that guy in a cage at the RR Museum of Pennsylvania so everyone would understand what went wrong with Penn Central!!
My uncle rose in the rail Industry to become a Class I CEO, and he worked at various times with (not for) PRR people, as well as for Alfred ("Mr") Perlman, who was definitely not PRR and was edged out of PC. My uncle had a particular black spot in his heart for PRR people.
But it was my first railroad -- born in Philadelphia, grew up in NJ and Maryland, rode it back and forth to school and so forth. I like to model it, and for quite a while I got good modeling info from the PRRT&HS. But more recently it's become a clone of the bad-old PRR.