EDIT: Okay, I get it. I misread his post. It doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humor.

Okay, let me re-edit with appropriate emoticons.

Zak, please get a sense of humor as ASAP as possible. Happy New Year.

Best,
-Andrew

When I worked for The Shore Fast Line while they were operating New Jersey Transit's line to Winslow Jct. in the mid 1980s, I noticed that the attic of one of the buildings in Hammonton, N.J. was full of those searchlight mechanisms, left behind from an old ConRail signal repair shop. Since none of the roads I was involved with used block signals, and I had enough collectables of my own, I didn't take any. Of course, after New Jersey Transit took over operation of that portion of the line and I no longer worked there, friends started asking if I could get them some of those innards!

Alex's sense of humor is appreciated and his comments. What it tells me is just how lucky that I was.

Zak, your defense (even if it was misinterpreted) is also appreciated.

Happy new year to you both, and all out here on RYPN.

I repeat:

SHUT UP, YA BAST*RD!!!!

[throws random object from desk in his general direction]

[*goes back to still wishing I could find something for Christmas for my RR historian brother-in-law who lives just up the road from the old UV&P Jerome Junction. . . .*]

Strangest thing that shows up around here? Oddball dining car china.

Out in the sticks of PA, we had a Buffalo China plant here in the 60's (Clarendon, PA). Toured it as a kid. Long closed and few even remember it now.

Apparently, there was shrinkage, and I don't mean of the clay. Ones and twos of some of the darndest dining car china continue to show up in the $1.00 piles in the local antique stores and yard sales. Sometimes there's a defect, but what it looked like was that the employee cupboards were stocked out with all manner of leftover dining car china, none matched, single items, and none even remotely close to where the actual railroads operated. Some pieces even unglazed, which is a dead giveaway.

When I worked for the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, the Shop Super and I went to pick up some replacement window panes from the local glass shop. The order required an additional 15 minutes to prepare so we walked into the antique shop next door to browse and look for streetcar stuff. As soon as we walked in we assumed we had made a huge mistake as the entire store was filled with furniture, paintings, vases and the like.

The owner inquired if he could help us find anything and we said probably not since we were looking for mechanical antiques and streetcar stuff. He thought about it for a minute and told us to hang on while he looked in the back. When he returned, he was carrying an original Dallas Railway & Terminal repeater gong. He ended up donating it to MATA and I believe it is in service today on one of the streetcars. What an odd coincidence.