CNJ.Jim...yes Tom Bavolar did a super job on that CNJ tug. He was also a photo buff and did b&w CNJ enlargements for me in his basement. Had a hobby store in Westfield until he passed away a few years ago. Made great custom CNJ decals in HO and O. Did a run of CNJ RDC decals for me and SIRT applied them to a fleet of MTH RDCs.
A side story to the Lionel tugboat...the production version of this tugboat was thankfully not what Lionel had originally proposed. Longtime friend and exceptional maritime artist Steven Cryan made suggestions to Lionel about their original selection through contacts at the Mystic Seaport Museum and was 99% instrumental in changing the original Lionel proposal and doing the accurate model steam tugboat we now enjoy. Lionel also had Steve do the cover artwork for the 2003 catalog.
Some CNJ tug photos from my collection.
My uncle Mike and my maternal grandfather were CNJ tugboat men. I spent many weekends during the summer riding CNJ tugs in NY harbor...even played 'captain' and handled a tug a few times up the Hudson!
Even got to ride 'upstairs' with the captain on many CNJ ferryboats across the river between Jersey City and New York during high school in the early 1960's.
Walter/CNJ Forever!
