New Arrivals!

Greetings followers of the A.P.R.R!

As the saying goes "You can never have enough trains!" Many of you have seen the work that John R. and his legendary Patti-O Paint shop has done on many A.P.R.R. freight cars including box cars, coal cars, covered hopper cars and an 86' Box car. The paint job and lettering rivals the work of Picasso, Rembrandt, and daVinci!

Today a package arrived from the headquarters of the Patti-O Paint shop & N.Y.C.T.L.Despite the challenges of cold weather, rain, sleet and snow, John was able to get 4 PS-2 covered hoppers painted in classic Penn Central lettering. The paint job is great, lettering is crisp, and will make its way shortly to the A.P.R.R. for inspection and a road test.

As always, John has a matching set so we can do some virtual ops for the Penn Central Car Movements (P.C.C.M.). In order to get them active on the railroad, I will have to take some freight cars off the layout or make up a train and put it in staging. Right now, the railroad has over 400 freight cars on the layout and in an operating session, the guys have moved more than 300 in one session!!

There were more cars in the box. I sent John a number of 86' 4 door and 8 door Box cars that I picked up at a local train show in NJ over the Thanksgiving weekend. John had alluded to me that he was thinking of painting them with some nice details added to the sides of the cars. I gave him full authority to 'do what he does best', and did he ever! One of them was a PRR box car, and since John had one, we left it as is. Take a look at these 3 box cars that John painted. When I opened them up I was absolutely floored!

The top car is what they call a 'patch' meaning the car came from another railroad and instead of doing a complete repaint, he added the Empire Belt markings to the car. In addition, he painted the freight doors a 'dark gray' so they really pop and make the model look fantastic. The middle model is another 4 door that John painted. I now have two like that on the railroad. But the pièce de résistance' is the third box car, the 8 door. When I opened the box and saw it, that made my night. It's truly the king of the railroad!

These freight cars will be making it's inaugural run to Rock Ridge from Terminal Yard and the N.Y.C.T.L. Keep a lookout for a post from John's blog N.Y.C.T.L. for more updates about this incredible project he tackled for me. THANK YOU SIR JOHN!!