New Engines For My Virtual Operating Sessions!

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

As many may know, I participate in a 3 railroad virtual operating session where like cars go from my railroad to Sir John's N.Y.C.T.L. and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division and of course to my railroad.

A conversation between the three of us was initiated by me as Ralph has a great industry on his layout called Tri Mount Cement.

I have a number of PS-2 covered hoppers which are in NYC and PRR paint schemes that I can interchange via photos with Ralph. John and I move 4 PC PS-2 covered hoppers from his industry, T&R Gravel..

The cars from John's railroad always go to my engine terminal. So I did some thinking and decided that other industries, even if 'Off Layout' can be used to receive these cars. Since I live in Morris County NJ, we have a company called "County Concrete" which uses sand and more to make cement. So why not have an 'off layout' industry as well that can handle these cars? County Concrete fits the bill! 

I have all the freight cars, so that's not an issue. I did have some Atlas HO scale C424 engines in the Morristown & Erie (M&E) that were new. The M&E is a local shortline that has been around for decades and it's possible at one time the M&E serviced County Concrete and both Kenvil and Morristown locations. All the engines needed were decoders. I asked my friend NJ John to do the install and as always, he delivered!

Here's M&E #'s 18 and 19 on the railroad..

Of course, we need a caboose for our virtual op sessions..

The engines and caboose will be in a consist and will be used to pick up the PS-2 covered hoppers that are dropped in Rock Ridge Freight Yard or Rock Ridge East Freight Yard. For those of you who don't know where Rock Ridge East Freight Yard is located, I will explain. During our virtual operating sessions, I pull the 89' Auto Rack freight cars out of the terminal, and use those 3 tracks for my virtual ops. It's very difficult to take photos of things happening in that PC era, so it's best to have engines move them out of the way. The easy thing is to do is move them around the top of the helix since this area is not photographed for virtual op sessions and the 'Five Finger Crane' is not needed...

So let's take a look at the engines taking a run on the railroad!

Until next time!!