Probably the shortest route in the vast Pennsylvania Railroad was the 2 mile single track that connected Princeton Junction on the electrified mainline to the station in Princeton Town ship on the edge of the Princeton University Campus. The line came into existence because when the PRR moved the mainline away from the township in the mid 1800’s, the University had enough pull to get the PRR to install a dedicated commuter line to campus. The Princeton station moved several times as the University expanded, finally settling on its present location in 1918 on Alexander Street. That original building was a beautiful gothic stone structure mimicking much of the architecture on campus. The line was affectionately called by locals as PJ&B (Princeton Junction and back) or just “The Dinky”
In recent years much controversy ensued as to what to do with the station. Or to even have a train at all. The 1918 building is protected as an historic structure. But NJ Tranist tried to do away with the train line. After the now commonplace lawsuits, the final solution was a new train station, whose architecture can charitably be described as functional. So much for history.
In the mid 50s, which I am modeling, the Dinky consist were two MP54s which had seen better days. The Dinky has a rich history. For example:
1) During football game weekends when the Dinky was filled to capacity (this was back when Ivy League football meant something and was avidly followed), the University and the Railroad made a joint placard, with the Princeton Seal inside a PRR keystone.
2) In 1962 four students wearing masks and riding horses held up the train at gunpoint. They pulled off four unsuspecting young women, dressed in their college best, as hostages. Mounting them on the back of their steeds, the students, gentlemen all, took the women unharmed to their expectant (and clueless) dates on campus. Unsurprisingly, the horsemen were later invited to leave school for at least year.
Of course I just have to model all that. The scene is not yet complete, but this is as it stands now. Here an MP 54 is waiting on the siding to whisk passengers the 2 miles to campus. The catenary is a bit lower than in real life, and the trees are closer to the tracks, but such is artistic license
My MP54s are Sunset models that were issued several years ago. So far I have only completed the first of two. It has been suitably weathered, rusted, and dinged up. Not excessively, but enough to give an overall aura of tiredness. I also pulled out all those new fangled LED’s and replaced them with prototypically dim incandescents.
By the way, this is what I started with:
Here is a close up of the placard in front of the finished unit. This was modeled after a photo in the book Pennsy Electric Years, Volume II, by Bert Pennybacker, page 42.
As for the desperados? Here are two of them:
but in reality it is more 
