Thankful Thursday

I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog how thankful I am to have a number of friends in the hobby that are very supportive of my efforts – some of whom have spent actual man-hours helping me with the layout. Bill, Randy, Pete, Tom, Dick, Pieter, Roman, Joseph have all devoted significant amounts of their time on-site to help me build the Valley Line (and the Air Line and the Shore Line %^). And many others have contributed information, advice, and guidance to me along the way to help me bring this project to life (I'm lookin' at you JohnW, Max, JohnG, Craig, Marty, Ted, Joe, Bill (the "other BillS"), Trevor, and the sadly-blogless JimD). I really hope I haven't missed anybody. I won't even try and name all the different folks that have graciously taken the time to offer encouragement either through commenting on the blog or taking me aside at an event. The free exchange of information, the generous offering of one's time, and the abundant back-and-forth of encouragement are a lot of what makes this such a great hobby

If I'm going to be honest though, this first edition of "Thankful Thursday" was prompted by a totally unexpected package I got in the mail yesterday from DaveM. Dave grew up in Wethersfield, just slightly after the era I'm modeling, and he was able to visit my layout during the NERPM weekend a couple weeks ago. Fortunately, he was able to stay a while and gave me lots of great information on the area that I hadn't heard before, which is especially surprising since I've been studying the area for a few years now and thought I knew everything about it. Silly, silly me.

So when I saw where the package was from, I thought perhaps he was sending me some photos or other information. That, of course, would have been awesome, but instead he sent me the following note:

For the Church St. Siding:
PRR Hopper (opposite station)
WFE Reefer ("" Gra-Rock)
Conveyor (w/hopper)
Coal Load
Enjoy! Dave

And, yes, those items were in the box, wrapped in bubbles. Here they are spotted on the Saybrook balloon track ready to be taken up the Valley Line to Wethersfield:

In transit, at Rocky Hill:

Spotted at their final destinations:

Thank you Dave! I expect these cars will have a long life producing revenue for the Valley Local!

It's sometimes easy to take for granted all the generous people model railroading introduces us to, so I thought it'd be fun to do an occasional "Thankful Thursday" to celebrate those who have contributed something to our efforts, who have spent some of their valuable time to help, influence, inspire and inform us.

Who are your influences? Who's helped you along the way?