Sunday, July 6, 2025

The Patti-O Paint Shop Delivers!!

Hello followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad Blog! 

As many of you know, many of my APRR freight cars have been painted by Sir John and his Patti-O Paint Shop empire. He does great work and I value his service and of course our friendship for many, many years...

I recently picked up some undecorated 50' ACF Exterior braced box cars at a very good price, new in the box (I know, I'm a trainaholic, and let's leave it at that!). I reached out to Sir John and asked him if he would be willing to tackle some freight cars to be painted in the APRR Orange. John has done many of these on a bunch of RBL box cars, so he had the color and design down pat. It didn't take long for him to let me know to send them to the paint shop, which I did that day!

A few weeks later, they emerged out of the Patti-O Paint Shop of the NYCTL and Sir John had them sent to Selkirk on a manifest train from Terminal Yard...



A short time later, Sir John had them leaving Terminal Yard for Selkirk. The Penn Central would shuttle them down to the PC Weehawken yard, where the APRR crew would pick them up...


A few days later, they arrived at Weehawken, where AP Extra 303 picked up the 2 new AP box cars, #500 & #501 along with some freight cars that were in Weehawken awaiting for pickup by the APRR crew...

We see the crew at a stop signal east of West Harold Interlocking awaiting the signal to proceed to Rock Ridge Yard...


Our official APRR photographer Norman had the chance to take a photo of the new freight cars before they arrived in the yard...


Here we see Extra 303 bringing the train to Rock Ridge Yard...



The train arrived in the yard and the APRR crew has gathered around to see the great paint job that was done to these new cars. They will go into revenue service in our next PCCM. 



A BIG 'THANK YOU!' to Sir John and his tremendous job that he's done on these freight cars as well as all of the APRR, EBRR, and Penn Central cars that he's painted for me!!

As Sir John would always say....'Put it in the books!'