Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: NYC

I'm not sure whether to be surprised at finding this. If I'm not mistaken, this isn't a Lionel 700E Hudson, but I could be mistaken. I mostly notice that it doesn't have the little bare metal whistle, so it's probably from MTH or some other manufacturer. It did appear to be O Scale, though (unless my eyes were bad and it was S).

This is maybe my best-ever photo of New York City, taken from our A330 as it approached Newark. The only editing I had to do on it was up the contrast, as the plastic airliner window generally wrecked the contrast on all my aerials this trip (ice may have had as much to do with this as the plastic). You can see the Empire State Building in the rear center of the shot, and if I'm not mistaken the river is the Hudson, since we were on approach to Newark on this flight.

This is one of the most amazing rail-related things that I've seen in my travels around the Czech Republic....a poster of a locomotive I used to work on in the U.S.A.!!!! You can actually see this locomotive in some of my own photos on Flickr, taken back in the good ol' days when I worked on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad. I have no idea why they chose this locomotive to put on a poster promoting rail travel in the Czech Republic, but what particularly amazes me is that they were even aware of 8223's existence. In any case, when I found this poster it made my day. :-)

I thought of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad again a couple of weeks ago when, to my astonishment, I found that Ceske Drahy, the Czech Railways, were using a photo of the Adirondack to promote one of their special services. Even more surprising, it was this locomotive, #8223, which was featured in their ad. I worked on and behind this locomotive many times while I was a volunteer on the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, so it brought back a lot of memories. I think that this photo was taken on the day that the Adirondack Scenic Railroad reopened to Carter. I'm not sure if this was taken that exact same day, but I'm fairly certain it was around that time, and in any case this photo does give a pretty good idea of what it was like to be at Thendara that year, even if there were often far more people around than seen here! Since this photo was taken, the entire yard has been resurfaced and the tracks have been completely replaced, meaning that it does look quite different today.