Weekend Update - The End Of The Month Operating Session - It's A Bust!

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad!

Today was supposed to be the monthly operating session which was scheduled to take place at my layout. However, mother nature had other plans. The weather, which as supposed to give us anywhere from an inch to a foot of snow left us with maybe 1-2 inches by midnight and a lot of rain today. At 7AM today, the rain had stopped, the trusty shovel and I went out and cleared a wide path for the guys to walk or drive up to the house. However, it was not to be...

I arrived at the diner at 8:20AM as the roads were empty, all clear and very foggy. Only two other guys showed up, so we sat down for breakfast, talked about trains and more, then called it a wrap at 10:00AM heading out our separate ways...

One of the fellow gatherers, Norman,  had called to see what was going on. After giving him the disappointing news, he asked if I was up for running some trains as he just picked up 2 Bachmann GG-1 engines on a deal from Trainworld. Norman is the Official Photographer of the A.P.R.R. and one of the guys who knows my railroad very well. He's been part of my layout tour team and has qualified as Yardmaster and should be qualified as dispatcher this year. 

A little background on the Pennsylvania GG-1 engines: 

Beginning in the early 1910s, the Pennsylvania received the FF-1 but decided it was too slow for passenger trains and was relegated to heavy freight service. In the mid 1920s, they received the L5 electric which had third rail power supply at the time. When the Pennsylvania built the O1 and the P5, they chose the P5 over the O1 for its ability and power on the rails. After a grade crossing accident with the P5, the cab was moved to the center and was designated P5a. Pennsylvania still searched for the ultimate electric since the P5 did not track well at high speeds and were wondering if the P5a could be improved even further. Soon enough, the Pennsylvania was in luck and found two contacts as early as 1932. The mechanical design of the GG1 was based largely on the New Haven EP3, which had been borrowed earlier from the New Haven Railroad by the PRR to compare it to its current standard electric locomotive, the P5a. In 1933, the PRR decided to replace its P5a locomotives and told General Electric and Westinghouse to design prototype locomotives with the following specifications: a lighter axle load and more power than the P5a, a top speed of at least 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), a streamlined body design and a single (central) control cab.

Both companies delivered their prototypes to PRR in August 1934. General Electric submitted the GG1 and Westinghouse submitted the R1. The R1 was essentially "little more than an elongated and more powerful version of the P5a" with an AAR wheel arrangement of 2-D-2. Both locomotives were tested for ten weeks in regular service between New York and Philadelphia and on a test track in Claymont, Delaware. Because the R1's rigid wheelbase prevented it from negotiating sharp curves and some railroad switches, PRR chose the GG1 and ordered 57 additional locomotives on November 10, 1934. Of the 57, 14 were to be built by General Electric in Erie and 18 at the Altoona Works. The remaining 20 locomotives were to be assembled in Altoona with electrical components from Westinghouse in East Pittsburgh and chassis from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone. An additional 81 locomotives were then built at Altoona between 1937 and 1943.


On January 28, 1935, to mark the completion of the electric line from Washington, D.C. to New York City, PRR ran a special train pulled by PRR 4800 before it opened the line for revenue service on February 10. It made a round trip from D.C. to Philadelphia and, on its return trip, set a speed record by arriving back in D.C. 1 hour and 50 minutes after its departure from Philadelphia.

In the mid-1950s, with declining demand for passenger train service, GG1s 4801–4857 were re-geared for a maximum speed of 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) and placed in freight service. They initially retained their train heating steam generator, and were recalled to passenger service for holiday season mail trains, and 'Passenger Extras' such as those run for the annual Army–Navy football game in Philadelphia.

Timetable speed limit for the GG1 was 75-80 mph until October 1967 when some were allowed 100 mph for a couple of years; when Metroliner cars were being overhauled in the late 1970s, GG1s were again allowed 100 mph for a short time when pulling Amfleet cars on trains scheduled to run 224.6 miles from New York to Washington in 3 hours, 20–25 minutes.

The Bachmann GG-1 engines are equipped with both DCC and Sound. For the money they are well worth what he paid for them. Norman grabbed one in Tuscan Red and one in Brunswick Green. 

Here's the Bachmann 4913...

And the Real PRR 4913...

Next is the Bachmann 4935

 And the Real PRR 4935

First video is the PRR train at the Amtrak Union Station. I broke out 10 PRR P85b Coaches with the Keystone Livery made by Centralia Car Shops, part of Intermountain Railway Trains. Also added to the end of the train was a Kato Amtrak business car 

Next up is a run thru heading west thru the Amtrak Station...

While Norman was running his train, I broke out the updated TTX train and gave it a run around the railroad...

The last video was a nice one as I caught both the PRR passenger train and APRR TTX train in the same area with lots of action...

While the operating session was a bust, a day of trains was not to be denied. There is always one person up for running trains, and Norman was up for the challenge.....

P.C.C.M. 56: A Tribute to the New Haven RR on the A.P.R.R.

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad!

We've had a number of unique op sessions and tributes on our railroads. The group decided to do a tribute to the New Haven Railroad, and everyone will honor the New Haven in their own way, as we should!

My fleet of New Haven equipment is mostly diesel engines and passenger cars, with a small smattering of freight cars. The engine roster has a Walthers Proto Alco PA-1, Athearn SDP40, Bachmann Spectrum E-33, and two Atlas GP38 engines that encompass my fleet. 

I have a number of McGinnis passenger cars to support these engines. Branchline came out with a set of Heavyweight cars in kit form, and they're still waiting to be built (as are other kits). Walthers did some passenger cars in the NH streamline paint scheme, and so did Rapido on their line of Osgood-Bradley passenger cars. Back in the day, IHC as well as Rivarossi produced them in 8 car sets. I'm sure these were not prototypical of the New Haven, however, they looked good and I found 6 of them. These are the cars I will highlight on the layout as my tribute to the New Haven.

This is one of two Atlas GP38 engines on the roster. The other engine is #253

The passenger cars are from IHC with the exception of the heavyweight sleeper, which is from Rivarossi. There are six cars on the train. One car, the baggage was camera shy...

NH Extra OCS-1 arriving at Baskerville Jct. outside of Rock Ridge. Looks like the crossing gates got excited and decided to play some games...

Some fan awaiting for their usual local passenger train received a nice surprise. 

And now, just like the real railroad, we head out into the sunset......

Preparing For An Operating Session on the A.P.R.R.

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad!

As many of the followers know, I am involved with a great group of model railroaders as well as former and current railroad workers and some rail historians. All of the guys in this non-group group (as I like to call it) will go to visit all 3 layouts at various times of the year as those folks will host what we call operating sessions. There are 2 types of operating sessions. The end of the month session is normally held on the last Sunday of the month. It's a morning session which starts at 8:30AM at the diner closest to the host and after the 'food' we head to the hosts home to run trains. The hosts always offer some drinks (non-alcoholic) and snacks for everyone. The Mid-month session is a combination of a 'work session' if the layout needs some work like scenery, wiring, electronics, etc. as well as running trains on the layout. You can also bring an engine to run on that persons layout, provided it's DCC. 

I have the nice fortune to host both mind-month and end of the month sessions for January. This is due to one guy who is not available on Wednesdays to host due to afternoon commitments and the other guy who was in the middle of making some needed track repairs to his layout. In addition, the end of the month for January is always one week early due to the train show the end of the month in W. Springfield, MA. Add to it the fact they are predicting some snow and the one layout owner has a narrow road that gets buried with a snow storm. That leaves me....

Friday night I went into the train room to restage the session that I had this past Wednesday. Two of the guys were adding ties to my track work where I removed some due to the installation of flex track. Once completed, ballast will be added by some of the guys who have offered to help me. This is one area that I am still trying to grasp. I will get there sooner or later. 

The railroad needs a dispatcher and a yardmaster for a reasonable operating session. There are at least 3 guys who know the yard. One guy, when he is there, always runs the yard. There are two other guys who know the yard if he's not there. A dispatcher is always needed to route the trains. The last couple sessions I've had the 2 guys who know my railroad dispatch, which gave me some time to show some other people the railroad who are new to the layout or haven't been around and I give them a refresher course. 

There are only two pieces of paperwork needed to get the railroad running. First one is a train listing of the trains in staging. That includes both passenger and freight. This list will be updated later tonight as I finalize the trainsets for the Sunday session. Some of the trains have been moved since this image was taken. Track #1 in both North and South Staging are the ones closest to the center of the staging tracks. The empty tracks in the middle of both yards are the thru tracks. North staging is always entered from the east and departs to the west. South staging is entered from the west and departs to the east.

There is another list that is kept at the dispatchers panel and that is the consist list. In DCC, if you want to run more than one engine together, they need to be consisted. This is my list and it comes in handy, especially if someone wants to add an engine to an existing consist or wants to make one. 

The last thing I use during an operating session is this Harbor Freight Monitor with 2 cameras. Each camera is situated at the end of each yard. This way I can view the traffic below and also see who is not paying attention when moving trains. 

There are 2 sets of main staging tracks - 5 for North staging and 4 for South Staging. This is North staging....

This is South staging. There is always on track open on either staging area so we don't have any bottlenecks when trains are being moved. 

As you can see in North Staging I keep the nose of each train visible with the engine number so the guy running the train knows which one to grab. 

There is a track under the main part of the layout which I will use to hold a trainset or two. That is called 'Inside Loop Lower Level' Right now it has one TTX train which I always let the new person run. It's a dedicated train, no stops to switch industries or drop off cars. It runs the entire railroad, including the freight yard. This gives the new guy a view of the entire railroad while running the train. Besides, I like the look of a string of nothing but TTX box cars!! The other track for storage is around the bottom of the helix, and that holds the Amtrak Passenger train. 

Today I was in the train room and I reviewed the industries to make sure they were set for the session. One thing I noticed was a trainset missing that could be used to serve a major industry. There was a need for a train dedicated to Shapeless Steel. Normally, its a local job out of the yard. Engineer grabs an engine, picks up cars at the steel plant to drill or the yardmaster will build the train and send the engineer on his way. Now I have a train which has gondola cars, coil cars, flat cars that will service the industry. It will head to Rock Ridge freight yard, get dropped off, pick up what was brought over, and then head back to staging. This makes the run longer and more enjoyable. It also makes this job a two engineer assignment! 

I've assigned A.P.R.R. GP50 #500 for this assignment, and running long hood forward. There are, at present 9 cars on the train. More can be added if need be. I'm working on finding more gondola cars with loads at the next train show. 

This train will go down below on one of the main staging tracks and I will move one other train behind AP #361 TTX train. The second TTX train has been merged into one. 

We will debut the steel train at tomorrows session. I know it will be an eye opener as I've never had one and, I never run high hood engines! Should be an interesting time, weather permitting...

Mid-Week update at the New Jersey Layout

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad!

Now that I'm back in New Jersey for a while getting used to this wonderful weather we're having, it was time for a layout update.

This month is a short month for gatherings due to one of the largest model train shows in the Northeast happening the end of the month. It's the Railroad Hobby Show that's held every year in W. Springfield, MA. This show gets about 20,000+ visitors every year. I'll be there the entire weekend at the East Coast Circuits Tables.

Since the show draws many of the guys who gather, we change the dates to meet. I was asked to host the mid-month since Steve, our ringleader has part of his railroad out of service. The mid-month sessions usually have some of the guys work on the layout doing some type of scenery, wiring or whatever may need to be repaired or tweaked. Others can bring their own trains to run. Today two of the guys were working on some of my tracks installing ties where needed. They were taken out when flex track was installed, and now that we're into the ballast phase, they need to be put back into place. While that was going on, a couple of guys wanted to run some trains. I had my #1 Yardmaster available, Rich T. and 3 guys ran trains. My friend NJ John wanted to test his new Amtrak train on the layout to see how it ran. As a fan of Amtrak, and NJ John being my right hand man during operating sessions or layout tours, who am I to say no to him!

Here's the train on its inaugural run on the layout.

He did have an issue with one car. Walthers passenger cars, no matter how nice they look, always have problems. His was no exception as you may have heard or seen in the video.

After everyone left, I had a package arrive from the Dedham, MA paint shops. In the package were 2 more cabooses, which will go on the layout after they receive some upgrades, and 4 tanker trailers which he offered to paint. They are made by Promotex (Herpa) and I had two in white and two in silver. Here's how they came out:

The first two silver trailers were placed by the power plant.

The second two were placed near Three Amigos Warehouse and the propane area. While these are oil tankers, they will eventually be moved to the engine terminal on the lower level. I placed them on top for a photo op for all to see.

The end of the month gathering, as of this posting is scheduled to be held at my place, and that is due to the potential snow storm we're supposed to get this weekend. Steve lives on a rural road, and they don't plow the area until last and it's a narrow road for his town to clear. The road can't handle cars due to the snow.  I will break out the snow blower Saturday night, do my best and get out early Sunday for a final clearing. Hopefully we shall gather. 

Keep checking back for more updates!

Florida Layout Update for January 2019 - A Revision!

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog site!

A few days ago I posted my proposed track plans for my Florida layout. I went into details on what I wanted to do, a list of industries and how trains should move.

In addition, I sent the plans to a few trusted friends for feedback, and boy did I get a number of emails full of replies, to say the least!! Comments went from 'are you out of your mind' and 'mishegoss is what's coming to mind', to some I can't (okay I won't) copy and paste here for all to read.

There's a saying that goes like this: "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry" is what happened here. I strayed away from my original concept and that was a single track point to point railroad with a passenger / commuter train thrown in for good measures. Also, when I went into the train room on the morning of the 9th, I didn't like what I saw as far as the crossover tracks.

After speaking to some trusted sources, and as I said, some serious suggestions on emails (you know who you are), we went at it again.

Here is the next revision of the lower level:

The first change and the most important one was to change the track to and from the helix to a single track. The inside helix track will be used for passing, or having a train sit there until needed. Next was to eliminate the sets of crossovers at the top since it's now single track and you only need one crossover to get to the main track to go up the helix from the yard or return to the yard. The biggest change was getting rid of the giant 'X crossover' in the middle. It looked funky and the real railroads never had anything like it, at least not in a yard area. Other changes include having the tracks from the industry tracks on the left (A & B) go to and from the yard without going on the main track. Another casualty more than likely will be the elimination of the intermodal yard tracks. Since this layout is more of a shortline type railroad, there's not enough space for them to be serviced. That being said, they will either remain in the yard on the lower level right side, or not make an appearance on the railroad at all. Same with auto racks and the 89' flat cars. The 3 engine tracks that were originally posted in location 'G' will be changed to an industry and where the turntable will go, a couple tracks will be there for engines as well as the lead going to and from the turntable. A small industry will be added in location 'J' as planned on the original diagrams. One thought is to put a small passenger platform against the middle section by the window. 

Next up is the upper level:

There are a few changes on the top. First change was to eliminate one set of crossovers on the main track from the east wall. The small yard in the middle has one track going to the Cargill area from the yard track closest to the middle wall, and not from the closest track to it, which was close to the edge. The yard can be used quite effectively in the operations. A train gets delivered from the lower main yard and the operator works the entire upper level. He can hand off a train to another operator to take back to the main yard as well. The way the industries are laid out on top make the space look better, no clutter. 

So what does this do for operations? It makes the railroad operate better and with 2-3 guys can be a lot of fun. We're going to focus on box cars, reefers, some coal, corn syrup tank cars, some covered grain hoppers, all with the supporting industries. 

I have a better feel for how the railroad should run and when I have an operating session, should give us a good hour or two of some fun. 

One downside to all of this was my enthusiasm for building the layout. I will have to rip up about 8 feet of painted cork and fix up the area. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that and certainly not the last!!

Check back for more updates and how this layout will come to fruition...

First Florida Layout Update for January 2019

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog site!

I've been down in South Florida since Mid-December having a great time, spending it the CFO Wife and my side of the family. In between all of that, I've had time to work on building the layout. Being retired doesn't hurt the cause, does it? I don't think so....

My last post on the progress showed the frames in place on both upper and lower levels. Since that time, I've added the plywood for the upper level and secured it in place. 

The difficult part was getting the helix connected to the lower level. After several attempts with adjusting the plywood grade, we have a connection!

Next was to come up with a tentative track plan, which I have done. Here's the lower level. 

And the Upper level.....

I've already worked on tweaking the track plan. The intermodal yard is now being moved as the space needed to the track next to the main tracks are too close for comfort, so I moved the tracks to the upper level east wall (right side) towards the front of the benchwork. Will relocate that industry later as I progress with installing more track. 

Cork roadbed has been laid on one section that will have the track leading to & from the helix. It's the main track that will be primarily for the passenger train as it has good size radius on it. Once I paint the cork, I can start to lay some track and continue working on installing more cork to get the lower level west wall connected to the north wall (middle section) and then on to the east wall (right side).

This was taken last night prior to the intermodal tracks being removed. 

This should you a better feel of what I'm trying to do. Trains need to be able to go from either side of the railroad while on the lower level. Same theory applies to the upper level. Since I had to change the track leading to the intermodal, it has given me some more space in the front (middle) of the layout to make some industry access easier to both sides of this level.

More to follow....