Bill Lane's PRSLHS Page

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Bill Lane’s PRSLHS Page

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My memories of the PRSL are from its last years. My Grandmom’s house was in North Wildwood. The line into West Wildwood is visible from Wildwood Junction across the marsh and up to the now former West Wildwood bridge. A favorite past time as a child was crabbing and fishing from the dock. But I was constantly watching the West Wildwood Bridge. If it started to close, my Pop would jump into the car and we would try to beat the train to the Oak Avenue Station. In summertime traffic in the 1970s it was usually a close race. By that time the trains were almost always an RDC1, but there were a few trains with gondolas loaded with large boulders for the beach bulkhead projects.

My PRSL interest is in the late steam era especially in the Wildwood area. The Baldwin AS16 was new. There was a mixture of PRR K4, H9 and Reading steam power basking in the midday summer sun at Cold Spring Harbor waiting to take the day trippers home. I hope to model this area with my AS16, K4 and some P70 coaches. I also have a GP38 that will be done for PRSL some day even though it might not have the extended cab as the prototype did.

This is what the PRSL is all about for me.

AS16, PRR K4 and RDC are laying over in the hot summer sun at Cold Spring Harbor.

Sometimes I wished I could have seen it myself.

Here is a contemporary view into West Wildwood. The multi-floor buildings were built in the late 1970s and forever changed the view of the bridge area. You can almost see the right high tension tower that spanned the bridge under the red arrow. These towers remain today.

PRR K4 5495 Camden NJ 3-21-54

I am slowly detailing one of my K4 to be K4 5495.

Please see http://www.lanestrains.com

This K4 project has been in my mind for about 15 years now. I actually painted my first K4 as 5495 until I learned more about K4s and the PRR. I then traded it away for an unpainted K4 which has remained unpainted until June 2006 when I finally started it. 5495 was in the last batch of K4 made which was unique in that they had a cast frame. The cast frame is visible mostly from the front because of diagonal braces that ran from the pilot to the cylinders. It ran late into the steam era since it was newer then other K4s. Another unique feature was that is was never fully modernized as it kept its original pilot, but got the modernized boiler front and headlight position change. 5495 became a small obsession of mine because it ran on the New York and Long Branch, and more importantly the PRSL. It was the subject of Builders photos when it was new. All of these factors played into my decision to model it as close as I possibly could. It is good that I waited until now to do this since my modeling skills have improved to tackle such an involved project.

Since starting the PRSL Historical Society I have learned a lot, and have become much more interested in the PRSL. Still Wildwood is THE most important PRSL place of interest for me.

On February 261989 I walked around the Wildwood Oak Avenue Station with my video camera. I must have heard it was going to be torn down. My only regret was not going inside as well. I could have but did not. This area is all Condos now.

Click the below photo to see the video

Cape May Seashore Lines RDC running South on 9-12-04

Please contact me if you have photos or other PRSL materials for the Wildwood or Woodbury area.

I would like to buy or trade you for them.

Revised on 1-9-10

Resuscitated from a 20 year nap on 1-25-07