Welcome everyone to another Penn Central Car Movement on the Atlantic Pacific Railroad. This is a three layout movement featuring John's New York Central Layout and Ralph's Kings Port Division railroads, all of which are PC inspired!This series is a little different than our typical train moves as the railroads are being asked to transfer loaded coal hoppers from various railroads and coal mines to be delivered to the Penn Central Selkirk, NY freight yard for distribution.
It's morning on the APRR and there's 2 trains waiting to deliver their train to Rock Ridge Yard. On the left is AP Extra 3018 and Engineer Matt with a string of loaded coal hoppers that were picked up from Morrisville Yard in Pennsylvania. The Penn Central had asked the AP to pick up these cars and another PC set of engines will take them to Selkirk, NY. On the right is Erie Lackawanna Extra 3648 with loaded coal hoppers from the Anthracite region in Pennsylvania. Due to heavy traffic this time of the year, the EL was told by the PC to have these cars delivered to Rock Ridge Yard on the AP for transfer to the PC.
Both trains await the signal as the crew at Rock Ridge Yard is preparing to take these cars in for a quick outbound departure in less than 24 hours!
AP Extra 3018 is first to depart..
AP Extra 3018 departs West Harold Interlocking...
...And now approaching Rock Ridge Yard Limits...
The AP road crew arrives at the north end of the yard and meets up with Yardmaster NJ John. John is up in arms as he wants these guys to uncouple and move out as another train is right behind them!!
AP MP15 #105 with Norman in the cab is getting ready to uncouple the caboose and give it back to 3018 so they can depart quickly. Time is not in their side today!!
Another view of this train in the yard. In order to make some head room, they back in part of the train to East ladder track 10. This gives the engine some room to run around nd pick up their caboose...
That's one long coal train. But wait! There's more coming once AP engine 3018 departs...
Norman gives Matt the caboose and soon they'll depart the yard...
AP 3018 is on their way to Richmond Hill Engine Terminal to be serviced and based on their engine sounds, they'll need servicing!
Back over at West Harold Interlocking, the EL crew gets the signal to head over to Rock Ridge Yard. Tower Operator Bob has taken a special interest in this train as the engine is an EL SDP45 (or SD45M) as he used to work for the EL. Made him feel a little homesick, as told to this writer. The EL only had a handful of them as while the "SDP" may have you think it's a passenger engine, it's actually an SD45 with an extended fuel tank for longer runs on their railroad (Thanks again to both 1:1 Bob and Wikipedia). They'll proceed with caution as their on foreign rails.
Now that EL Extra 3846 has the signal, let's watch the train head to Rock Ridge Yard...
Over at the Rock Ridge Yard Limit, the crew awaits another signal. Tower Operator Rich T. advises them to get ready...
They get the signal and start up...
Check out EL Extra 3648 enter Rock Ridge Yard Limits..
They slowly enter the west ladder...
The EL crew has arrived and stops just before the yard office..
And the AP yard crew cuts the caboose and is ready to get EL 3648 out and get them to the AP engine terminal for servicing as well...
The engine is cut and they'll pick up the caboose on the south end of the yard before heading out...
We'll cut it here for today. Tomorrow the crew will give the PC team both sets of coal cars, a total of 29, to bring up to Selkirk for final distribution...
Thanks for reading!
