New Year, New Engine - R-3a #3554, A Jim Altieri Legacy

R-3a #3553 eastbound at Old Saybrook, Feb. 21, 1941

Some of you may recall that my first job after graduating high school was working as a steam locomotive fireman on the Valley Railroad in Essex, CT. But you probably don't know that one of my first mentors there was an engineer named Jim Altieri. He was an engineer in both senses of the word, having also worked at Pratt & Whitney & Sikorsky as well as doing a stint teaching at a tech college. He also built a model of a New Haven class I-4 steam locomotive. LIVE steam. 1/4" scale. From scratch. I learned a lot from Jim and I even had the honor of hosting him at a couple of op sessions on the Valley Line.

In addition to teaching me about 1:1 steam railroading, Jim was also one of the first folks I knew to use the "new" sound decoders (true to his technical background, he was an early adopter) and he freely shared his preferred CV settings when I got into DCC myself. He especially enjoyed programming model steam locomotives to sound as much like the real thing as possible.

Sadly, Jim passed away in October, 2022 and is sorely missed.  It'd be so great to see what he'd be doing with some of the new technology coming out these days and I would love to have him see how the Valley Line has progressed since his last visit - especially how my own collection of "chipped" (his preferred term) locomotives has evolved, and usually using the same function and CV settings he introduced to me all those years ago. It was a real privilege to know him.

Well, a little Christmas Miracle happened over the past couple of weeks. Turns out, a local artist and modeler - Steve Cryan (who's responsible for the train displays at Pizza Works and the exhibit at the CT River Museum) - acquired much of Jim's railroad collection, including some of his steam locomotives, and he called me to ask if I was interested in seeing them over at the museum.

Well, long story short, I was, and I did.  Unfortunately, there were only two locomotives left to see - an 0-8-0 and this beast - New Haven Railroad R-3a #3554:

"Builder's Photo" taken while testing on my layout to see if it'd make it around my curves...

Steve had graciously allowed me to test the engine on my layout before committing to purchase and not only did it run & sound beautiful (which wasn't surprising), but it also made it around the curves I have on the Shoreline (which was a little surprising). Since the #3554 was one of Jim's engines - and the R-3a class was a regular on Shoreline freights in the 1940s - there was no way I was giving this engine back to Steve. I purchased it the next day.

Unfortunately, literally a few hours later - after running it only about 10-15 minutes (albeit, admittedly, with a prototypically long train) - the 3554 started to bog down... and then it quit working entirely!

I was really glad to have one of Jim's locomotives, but I also wanted it to actually run and not be relegated to the shelf. Next time, I'll describe how I brought the 3554 back to life. . .