P.C.C.M. #72 Part One On The A.P.R.R.

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog! 

The A.P.R.R.management is back in the 'Northern Command' and participating in a 3 layout Penn Central Car Movement (P.C.C.M.) with Sir John's N.Y.C.T.L. and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division 

We're going to kick off P.C.C.M. #72 with the outbound portion of our virtual op session. There's a lot of freight that's going out, more than usual, as you will soon find out!

It's a nice day at Rock Ridge Yard as the crew assembles for the orders of the day. 1/87 NJ John is giving out the assignment to the engineers of the day consisting of 1/87th Norman, 1/87th Steve and 1/87th Stuart. Norman will be assigned to AP RS-1 #200, Steve will handle RS-1 #201 and Stuart, who despite a successful run the last time, will head over to R.M.O. Electric to handle GE 44 Tonner #900. Stuart is still unaware that he's on double secret probation from earlier assignments and management wants to keep it that way!

The first assignment is to pick up 5 box cars at Marcal Paper. 

A quick stop at CP South and 1/87th Rich tells him to check in with the tower operator at Little Jamaica.

As he heads out past the yard limits of Rock Ridge, 1/7th Norman passes a pair of GP60 engines idling. A quick stop and he shouts across the loud sounds of both engines to 1/87th engineer Bob. He asks why the wait and he replies "I'm waiting for my outbound freight. We brought these puppies over from the engine terminal." Norman nods and heads over to the interlocking at Little Jamaica.

 As he passes a quick look out to the right and he sees five box cars over at Marcal. 

Another shout out of the cab window to the tower operator about the freight cars over at Marcal. He's being told that Marcal received so many orders this past week that not only did they need more than the usual 2 freight cars, they need 5 and two of them had to be 86' box cars!!  1/87th Norman must be scratching his head on this one. Either someone didn't watch their inventory of some of the town folks must have that 'Get Up and Go' feeling in them. Looking at the manifest on final destinations, it's determined that a pair of A.P.R.R.  box cars are heading to Ralph's Grocery and the PC Box car is heading to Dan's Supreme located in Empire City. In addition, an A.P.R.R. 86' Box car is being sent full of toilet paper to Terminal Warehouse for storage. The Pennsy 86' Box Car is going to Battaglia Brothers Warehouse on the K.P.D. Man, that's a lot of toilet paper and paper products. Doesn't matter, the A.P.R.R. makes their monies on the movement of freight cars!

Here we see AP #200 shoving the cars on to the main from Marcal.

The first set of cars are dropped on the west departure track by CP South. Not sure why this is being done, 1/87th Norman cuts the cars. Now he's heading out to pick up some freight over at C&P Restaurant Supply and an empty Drop End Mill Gondola and add it to the train. 

The first pull is picking up the lone gondola over at Shapeless Steel. This will head over to Amalgamated Container on the K.P.D. 

Next stop on the West Harold Secondary is to pick up 5 box cars at C&P Restaurant Supply. BAR 7574 will head to Pilgrim State Hospital with frozen food. The pair of A.P.R.R. 40' box cars are heading over to best Wholesale with restaurant supplies. The pair of E.B.(Empire Belt) 40' Box cars are heading to Terminal Warehouse with additional restaurant supplies. All of these industries are located in and around Empire City on the N.Y.C.T.L.

A quick crossover to the main is required. In addition, in order to add these cars to the outbound train, 1/87th Norman needs to drop the cars on the main and do a 'run around' in order to shove them on to the other freight cars.

As we swing over to R.M.O. Electric, 1/87th Stuart is given the task of bring over empty coal hopper AP 9416 over to Rock Ridge as it's needed to get more coal at Hedberg Aggregates on the K.P.&W.

In addition, he needs to pull a pair of covered hopper full of wheat to be delivered to Ronzoni in Long Island City, NY. These cars are serviced by the N.Y.C.T.L. and / or the E.B. Railroad, depending which railroad is working the area. 

While pulling out the empty, 1/87th Stuart moves a pair of loaded coal hopper cars over to the main unloading track so the power plant doesn't have to cut back on operations. 

The loaded coal hoppers in place, he heads next door to pick up the pair of covered hoppers. A quick shove over to the yard, drop them off and then head back to the powe plant. 

GP 38-2 #300 and 1/87th Steve get the call to move a pair of empty gondolas that were picked up from Shapeless Steel and stored over at Rock Ridge due to capacity issues at the steel plant. They'll head to Gervais Pipe over in Empire City. Can you say 'storage charges'? Cha-Ching!!

The cars are dropped on the west ladder track and will be added to the train along with the other cars brought over by 1/87th Stuart. 

 1/87th Norman picks up the cars and adds them to the other outbound freight cars. 

AP RS-1 #201 with the yard engineer of the day and  heads down the west ladder to pick up a caboose to add to the outbound train. 

AP caboose #54, a wide vision caboose is called into service. 1/87th NJ John is watching the move carefully. 

Awaiting a green signal...

And he's off to add the caboose to the outbound freight cars...

Looks like 1/87th Stuart is giving the engineer some guidance so hook up to that 86' box car on the rear of the train. 

A successful move and AP #201 will head back to the yard...

We're going to stop it here for today. Not because we haven't finished the move. It seems that 1/87th Bob and it's crew have 'outlawed' for the day. What is 'outlawed'?  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The term outlaw, or outlawed refers to a crew (or train) which can no longer move because the crew has reached the maximum number of hours they are allowed to work, thereby outlawing their controlling the further movement of any train.

Check back again for the second part of the outbound on the A.P.R.R. as well as the rest of P.C.C.M. 72 on the K.P.D. and the N.Y.C.T.L.

Thanks for reading!