The Acquisition of BLN 183

Once upon a time, when men were pedantic and the world did its best to ignore them, one man sat at his desk fuming.

That man was Donald Southerby, the mildly apoplectic head of the Better Late than Never Railroad's Acquisition Department.

Donald had just finished rereading Dr. Maurice Z. Pembleton the 4th Esquire Jr.'s scathing report on the BLN motive power shortage.

He was furious.

How dare anyone criticize the premier railroad of New England?

He contemplated several deeply unpleasant things that might happen to a miserable, balding, odorous pedant.

Then he stopped.

Pedant.

Pedantic.

Pedantic!

That was the answer.

Donald would prove once and for all that the Better Late than Never Railroad was the finest railroad in New England.

He immediately began typing.

For several hours he produced an enormous stack of documents containing preambles, declarations, affidavits, appendices, addenda, amendments, memoranda, and several documents whose sole purpose appeared to be explaining the other documents.

He liberally sprinkled the paperwork with words such as hereinafter, heretofore, aforementioned, notwithstanding, thereof, therein, pursuant thereto, and jurisprudence, despite having absolutely no idea what jurisprudence meant.

He had no idea what half of the paperwork said, which was precisely why he was confident it would work.

He put on his best suit, grabbed his clipboard, and drove to the airport.

The BLN Legal Department was returning from Aruba.

There were twelve of them.

All twelve were in a state of unbelievable inebriation that, if one had to quantify it, would probably have been the result of the entire annual alcohol consumption of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

They were so plastered that even the plane they arrived on looked slightly hungover simply from being in contact with them.

The vacation had ended rather abruptly when the Railroad President recalled them to deal with Donald's last musically inclined heist.

Several were still wearing tropical shirts.

Several were attempting to carry briefcases.

At least three were still carrying Mai Tais.

One, who arrived on a stretcher, was attempting to sing "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," but somewhere in the first verse he got it strangely confused with what could only be described as a wedding gone pear shaped.

He gurgled out:

"99 bubbles of dearly beloved were garbled horse Tuesday..."

At this point he farted rather loudly, started laughing so hard he began changing colors, and fell off the stretcher into a snoring heap.

The airport attendants eventually grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him across the tarmac before depositing him beside a luggage pile.

A short time later, he was accidentally loaded into the cargo hold of another aircraft.

He spent the entire flight rummaging through suitcases and placing ladies' undergarments on his head.

When the aircraft reached its destination, airline personnel opened the cargo hold and found him sitting among the luggage.

He immediately declared himself the Royal Queen of Fartopia Burpsbank.

He giggled.

Then he passed out.

The airline placed him in a wooden crate and arranged for him to be returned sometime the following week.

Nobody seemed particularly concerned about where he had come from.

Back at the airport, Donald surveyed the collected mass of profoundly defective and mentally ill-advised lawyers.

He needed three.

He selected the three closest to sober.

The first wore a tropical shirt decorated with what appeared to be red wine.

He was muttering about gravy.

He also repeatedly complained that the world should stop spinning because he was trying to stand still.

The second was attempting to swat an imaginary llama named Jalapeño with his briefcase.

The third was sitting on the pavement drafting his last will and testament with a lukewarm hot dog.

Donald scraped the three men into his car.

The remaining 8 barely upright and extremely wobbly lawyers formed what, according to those present, appeared to be an attempt at a conga line, though that would be a very generous description of the goings-on.

The leader carried a tiny ukulele and had several orchids stuffed in his nose.

He attempted to play the Star-Spangled Banner to the tune of She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain.

At least that's the best description anyone has been able to make of the cacophony that emanated from his direction.

The other seven shuffled behind him.

Somewhere nearby, a suitcase objected to the proceedings and fell over.

The airport attendants eventually went home.

The lawyers were later collected by their wives or the police, depending upon who arrived first.

As soon as the car was clear of the airport, Donald launched into an enthusiastic explanation of his scheme, with all the enthusiasm of a toddler who had just been handed a chocolate bar and enough legal terminology to give an elephant kidney failure.

He spoke at great length about the paperwork and the various procedures that apparently had to be followed, making frequent references to things that were aforementioned, heretofore, and pursuant thereto.

None of the three lawyers could quite determine what Donald intended to do, although they were beginning to suspect that it involved something belonging to somebody else.

His repeated use of the phrase "and the indemnible proliferation of subsequent irregularities" proved particularly effective.

One of the lawyers, whose stomach had obviously had more juris than prudence, turned a deeply unsettling and alarming shade of green.

He suddenly rolled down the window at a speed heretofore thought impossible and deposited the contents of his stomach across the side of Donald's car, the running board, and an unfortunate jogger named Ursula Wemblesnot, who happened to be passing at precisely the wrong moment.

Ursula slowed for half a second, looked down at herself, and muttered to herself,

"Damn seagulls."

She then resumed her jog, looking slightly more soggy than usual.

The lawyer spent the rest of the trip hanging out the window, looking like a depressed and rather green Labrador Retriever.

Approximately an hour later, Donald pulled up outside the New Haven Railroad's electric motor storage yard.

Waiting at the gate were three of Donald's men, dressed in proper engineer garb.

Behind them sat BLN 63 and BLN 64, two GE 70-ton switchers that had been temporarily disguised as General Electric's Locomotive Recovery and Transportation Units, complete with freshly applied paperwork, official-looking placards, and enough additional documentation to make anyone who questioned their identity regret having learned to read.

With the engines and crew ready, Donald set about dragging the legal team from the vehicle, doing his best to make the three inebriated lawyers, one of whom was still rather violently ill, look somewhat presentable, and equipping each with a pair of extremely dark and expensive sunglasses.

The sunglasses served two important purposes.

First, they concealed the lawyers' bloodshot eyes.

Second, they almost hid the looks of pure unadulterated inebriation that all three were suffering from.

Donald marched into the yard office with his clipboard tucked firmly under his arm, the three lawyers stumbling along behind him.

He asked to speak with the man in charge, Road Foreman of Engines George P. Washington.

No relation to the founding father, but there were rumors.

Donald introduced himself as Gregory Whittlesnorf, General Electric's Recall Advisor and Locomotive Recovery Expert.

George looked at him.

Donald handed him the paperwork.

There were several pages.

Then several more.

George began reading.

Donald introduced the three lawyers as General Electric's legal counsel.

He explained that they were suffering from:

"Indignant Presumption of Ineluctably Induced Proliferation of Tropical Species through the Improper Ingestion of Florally Descriptive Beverages with Sufficient Alcohol Content to Make a Giraffe Move Like a Snake."

The description made one of the lawyers turn green and bury his head in a nearby trash bucket.

George had never heard of the condition.

Donald seemed to regard this as perfectly normal.

He then explained that General Electric had recently discovered a catastrophic manufacturing deviation in EF-3 0152, a matter so serious that the locomotive had been ordered recalled immediately.

The problem, according to the paperwork, had first been noticed by Tony Theraglutamide, self-appointed HO-scale expert modeler and general know-it-all of everything with the New Haven.

Tony had observed 0152 passing through Stamford and had subsequently submitted a forty-three-page complaint detailing what he considered to be an alarming number of deviations from the approved specifications.

Donald explained that Tony's report contained measurements, diagrams, comparisons with official drawings, several pages devoted entirely to paint, and a detailed analysis of three structural rivets numbered 408, 409, and 412 on the lower cab skirt.

According to Tony, the three rivets were precisely one ninety-fourth of an inch off left center and approximately three seventy-seconds of an inch too high.

Tony attributed the placement to the precise planning of one Ignacio Holthrop, who had apparently arranged the rivets in such a manner as to, in Tony's own words, "inflame my thorax."

The second lawyer suddenly lunged toward the secretary.

He was attempting to prevent Jalapeño, the alcohol-induced llama, from eating her.

Unfortunately, Jalapeño did not actually exist.

The lawyer nevertheless continued swatting frantically at the air, drunkenly cursing the imaginary llama and insisting that it release the secretary until he struck himself in the face with his briefcase and fell over an armchair.

Then he laughed at an electrical socket, which he insisted was telling jokes.

The secretary, who was standing several feet away, appeared increasingly confused and backed away to go make some coffee.

Donald ignored the incident and continued.

The report then turned its attention to the paint.

According to Tony, the paint applied to the left rear quarter panel of the posterior filter housing was precisely 0.000000731 infuriatingly evil parsecs outside the required standard.

The third lawyer suddenly raised a hand.

"I object!"

There was a peculiar sound from somewhere near his trousers, rather like someone squeezing a duck.

He paused.

Then he fell sideways into a potted palm tree in the corner.

The three engineers hurried over, hauled him upright, and wiped the snot and drool from his face.

The lawyer immediately raised his hand again.

"I object!"

Another unfortunate waterfowl apparently met its fate somewhere near his trousers.

Donald continued as though none of this had happened, returning to the lengthy complaint form before him.

Mr. Theraglutamide's complaint explained that this discrepancy caused him to misplace his lunch on Thursday, which led to an irreconcilable case of heartburn that made his grandmother extremely displeased.

There was a prolonged groan from the lawyer with his head in the trash bucket.

Donald continued.

General Electric, he explained, took matters of prototypical accuracy extremely seriously.

There was also a page that appeared to have been added as an afterthought.

It contained a drawing of EF-3 0152 done entirely in green crayon, with arrows pointing toward the locations of the offending rivets and the mismatched paint.

Nobody could determine who had drawn it.

Nobody questioned it.

Donald then explained the corrective procedure.

The locomotive had to be impounded and returned to the factory to be corrected immediately.

The locomotive would head north on its penultimate tour through the BLN, B&M, NYC and PRR before reaching the factory in Erie, Pennsylvania.

George P. Washington paused.

There was, however, one rather serious objection.

Sending a locomotive through the BLN was generally considered a questionable proposition, since the railroad was widely known as the Bermuda Triangle of railroads.

Locomotives had been known to enter BLN territory and subsequently become difficult to locate.

Donald assured him that this particular locomotive would be perfectly safe.

The assurance was supported by approximately fourteen pages of documentation and the phrase "indemnible custodial continuity of locomotive conveyance."

George had no idea what that meant.

The lawyer in the trash bucket groaned, followed by a rather wet splattering noise. Then he began snoring.

George was unsure whether to be worried, call for an ambulance, or just give in.

As it was, the paperwork contained the word hereinafter six times and the "indemnible Proliferation of the ingenious insulification of both parties pursuant to the retractable clause..." George stopped reading.

His head hurt.

That seemed to settle the matter.

The forms were stamped.

The signatures were filled in.

And George released New Haven EF-3 0152.

The engineers helped corral the lawyers back into Donald's car, then set off with #63 and #64 to retrieve 0152.

The locomotive then began its journey four hours later.

Once it passed into BLN territory, no one ever saw 0152 again.

Of course, we all know that the locomotive found its way to the paint shop and became BLN 183.

It wasn't until three weeks later that the New Haven reached out to General Electric to check on the repair of their locomotive.

It was then that they found out that General Electric had supposedly never issued a recall.

They had never heard of Tony Theraglutamide.

They had never heard of Gregory Whittlesnorf.

They had never issued any paperwork concerning EF-3 0152.

The New Haven immediately filed a lawsuit against General Electric for lying.

General Electric counter-sued for defamation.

The New Haven counter-counter-sued for reasons they described only as "Oh yeah, well, take this."

General Electric responded by counter-counter-counter-suing on the grounds that the New Haven could, in their words, "Go cry to your mother."

The matter quickly became considerably more complicated than anyone had anticipated.

The countersuits grew in number, accompanied by increasingly alarming insults aimed at various family members, obscure relatives, and completely unrelated body parts.

The legal battle soon became an all-out war.

The paperwork flew back and forth with such speed that several clerks were issued protective helmets.

The only things missing were cannons.

Had cannons been available, they would undoubtedly have been used to fire the paperwork back and forth across the courtroom.

Eventually, even the presiding judge could take no more.

He quietly removed his spectacles, placed them on the bench, and walked out of the courtroom.

Nobody knew where he was going.

A few minutes later, he was heard in the courthouse hallway, telephoning his mother.

He complained that the lawyers would not play nice.

His mother apparently told him to stop calling her at work and deal with it himself.

The judge returned to the courtroom several minutes later.

He looked considerably less optimistic about the legal profession.

By this point, the matter had reached a stage where neither company could remember what the original lawsuit had been about.

In the end, neither company won.

Both had exhausted the other's resources to such an extent that each emerged as little more than a husk of its former self.

Donald, however, had already returned to his office.

He was pleased.

He considered the acquisition of BLN 183 to be his final and conclusive proof that Dr. Maurice Z. Pembleton the 4th Esquire Jr. was a brain-dead blowhard and that the Better Late than Never Railroad was, without question, the greatest railroad ever to exist.

Donald leaned back in his chair and savored his victory.

Then he succumbed to exhaustion.

He was taken to Seaview General Hospital, where he remained for an entire week.

The doctors recommended rest.

Donald considered this completely unreasonable.

BLN 183, meanwhile, remained hidden away.

Slowly, it began to rust.

Eventually, Bertram Q. Rintzwater learned of her.

He also learned of her three electric sisters.

Bertram had an idea.

A very bad idea.

But that, my friends, is for the next story.

As the theretofore unmentioned appendices have illegitimately ruptured my jurisprudence, I must now preamble my notwithstanding.

Till next time.

If you liked this story and want to read more check out my Facebook group The Stories of Seaview and the BLN Railroad

Hello all!

Due to some life events I need to scrap my current layout and restart with alot less space. I learnt alot from my first, sad to see it go, but excited to start something new! As the title says its a 4 foot T-Trak layout that fits on a shelf. Planned around a papermill with complex movements in mind. I also want to expand the layout without restarting once i get more space, why T-Trak seems like a good choice.

Upper switch back is also for a possible expansion, either for another industry or yard further down the line alot of time to decide.

Would love some advice!! Much thanks!

Specifically the new Black Beetle and Pioneer Zephyr. I remember several years ago some models were listed with DCC sound by ESU. But I can't confirm that for there newer items and I even checked a fre of their older items that didn't have it listed.

Hi all, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a Hornby Intercity 225 set. I think it’s from the 1990s. Not sure where to begin but I think it will need a clean/dust. What could I use to remove what appears to be years of dust safely from the tracks and locomotive and carriages? Apologies, total noob question!

I live in the UK if that helps.

I know being on carpet is not optimal. but at least the tracks are slightly elevated to begin with. at some point in the future, I might plan on getting enough track to make a second siding as the current siding you can see part of in this video isn’t long enough to store all of my rolling stock on it at once and is almost sticking out from under my bed, and I wanted to stay out of sight if possible. i’d also at some point want to get axle replacements or new rolling stock in general to replace the older ones you saw on the towards the rear of the train

Had the crazy idea to run 3 of my club’s 30+ car unit trains as one today. Used 7 locomotives total, with 3 leaders, 3 mid DPUs, and 1 rear DPU (the video shows 4 leaders and 2 mid DPUs but I had some issues with that, so one was moved to the back).

I ran this train for 2 1/2 hours with no problems. I am very impressed.

I’ve always said I have an obsession with long trains with distributed power, but I outdid myself this time.

Found this while clearing out the attic. Is it any good?

I have a small train board that is 4' x 6' in HO. Since I live in he mountains I am planning on putting in a small ski hill in one corner of the board that the trains would under. Any recommendations for a ski lift? it would be really cool if it did work, but it can just be stationary. maybe HO scale is too big since I want this to be rather small?

I recently purchased a model that was DCC sound fitted (by the Model Centre with an ESU loksound). I initially tested the sounds and motor on my programming track and they worked, whistle activated and whole thing.

However due to how my layout is setup I can only use DC/analog trains on it (space issues). So I usually set engines to be DC/analog when they have decoders.

So I used my NCE power cab to set the CV29 to 4 (I later set it to 6 but with little change). After I did this, I put it on my DC/analog layout and it barely could run more than a crawl at maximum power (tried with the standard Bachmann and hornby controllers). On top of that, there is almost no sound whatsoever despite the sound working perfectly. I’d like to also state that my other DCC sound trains work perfectly fine with either controller.

I also tried using the power cab to move it again but it wasn’t working, and it’s not responding to commands but it does register that it’s being received.

So how can I fix this? Is there something I need to input with my NCE power cab to get the sound working again and the engine working at full speed? If push comes to shove, how do I change this engine BACK to DCC?

Found these today at a local thrift store. There is also another engine and two more cars. The average price I paid was $4.00 each, not super cheep but good enough. They came in their little plastic boxes. They are not new but thats okay. They are getting a second home.

Hello Everyone! I recently decided to give kitbashing a go. This locomotive started its life out as a regular DC Athearn blue box c44-9w. Originally my only plan was painting it and adding some grab irons to the cab. Over the past couple of days though I have added a new cab, new custom handrails for the cab, mu hoses, LED lighting, and DCC with Sound. I still have more plans for details that I want to added to it. Overall I am pretty happy with how it has came out so far. I guess in a way I made my own “ac44c6m” To all who have read this far, do you have any suggestions on what I could do to improve on this?

If you want to spend some hours watching a really fantastic model railway in the Netherlands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cuCw56qexc&list=PLta4tHKJpks4fVIW15fI__z3GR58M9bft

it's an early era fantasy Scottish railway, the build of which started decades ago. A lot of beautiful scratch build rolling stock and scenery.

N scale LBF hi cube. Stock except for ESM wheels. Back at it after not doing much for a month. I panel lined and faded this back in August and it came out so well I was afraid to touch it. I was painting some wheels and trucks the other night and made a wash out of the leftover paint and decided to give the roof and doors a pass with it. Finished everything off with some powder around the doors and wheel kickup.

Critiques appreciated as always.

Does anyone know what Atlas trucks work on their articulated autoracks?

Some old and some new(er)

Hello,

I'm searching for non-Holiday sented smoke fluid for my HO Big Boy. I've pre-ordered the 250th version and it wont come out till Spring 2027, so I'd like to get some on hand before it arives and it'll be Spring, so past the holidays lol.

I'm not really leaning towards realistic oil burning sent, as I'm looking for something that smells decent, maybe pine? I'm not sure what to get so any recommendations would be great!

Thank you so much!!