P.C.C.M. #113 Part 2 - The Outbound Moves Continue!

Welcome back to the continuation of Penn Central Car Movement #113. Yesterday the crews worked Rock Ridge Yard and started to prepare the outbound trains as well as making room for more cars...

Today AP SW1500 #110 based at the Rock Ridge Industrial Complex will pick up 5 covered hoppers. Three AP covered hoppers will be sent to Quaker Oats  and the pair of EB covered hoppers will head to Hostess, all of which are on the NYCTL block...

R.M.O. Electric has 8 empty coal hoppers that will head out on the KPD train destined for the LV coal connection...

1:87 Yardmaster NJ John sends 1:87 Engineer JP over to the Industrial Complex to start working the area as AP Train RI-3...

First stop is Cargill where JP will pull the 5 covered hoppers...

Once he pulls them, JP will shove them over to the north yard entrance by CP Rock...

1:87 Engineer Dan is on call for today's work using APRR SW1000 #102...

Dan picks up the cars from JP and will spot all 5 for the NYCTL train...

JP heads back to R.M.O. Electric to pick up the 8 empty coal hopper cars for the LV Connection via the KPD. A stop signal holds him up

JP has the signal...

A few minutes later, we see R.M.O. Electric foreman Jay waiting for JP to arrive...

JP starts the pull...

A short time later, JP drops the hoppers at Rock Ridge Yard...

The8 empty hoppers get spotted on Departure track 'D' for the KPD train...

Meanwhile AP GP38-2 #307 with 1:87 Engineer Norman and conductor Jim will pick up freight over at C&P Restaurant Supply, Marcal and Freihoefer Bakeries. Knowing Norman, he'll try to get a box of Chocolate Chip Cookies (the soft ones in the box)...

Norman has the signal and heads out as AP Train RN-2 with some non-PCCM freight cars for Freihofer's...

AP Train RN-2 heads out...

A short time later Norman arrives at C&P Restaurant Supply. In order to make the 3 moves, he'll cut the caboose and service Marcal & Freihofer's first...

Next, he drops the cars for Freihofer's and continues east to access the 2 industries...

The 2 APRR cars will go to Ralph's Grocery on the NYCTL...

The EL reefer will go to Ralph's Grocery as well...

Norman shoves the 5 cars west and then spots the 3 non-PCCM cars over at Freihofer's...

A few minutes later, he's over at C&P Restaurant Supply pulling 9 cars for the NYCTL. The AP 40' box cars are heading to Best Wholesale with supplies. Four TP&W Box cars are heading out to Nassau Community College in Garden City, LI with Restaurant Supplies. Those cars eventually will get handed off to the LIRR, which serves the greater LI area. Same with the 3 reefers for Nassau CC...

Norman has the entire train back together with 12 PCCM and 2 non-PCCM cars and heads back to Rock Ridge Yard...

AP Train RN-2 heads back to the yard...

Norman arrives at the yard limits and awaits clearance to enter the yard...

Norman checks in with 1:87 tower operator Rich for routing into the yard...

...And NJ John is waiting for him, naturally...

Dan starts the breakdown of the train. All of these cars are headed to the NYCTL block with the exception of the 2 non-PCCM freight cars...

Dan will add the caboose back on to Norman's engine and head out as AP #307 caboose lite...

Rich waves to Norman...

Norman has the signal...

Next stop - Richmond Hill Engine Terminal...!

We'll cut it here for today. Tomorrow we'll wrap up my outbound portion of Penn Central Car Movement #113.

Don't forget to check out both Sir John's New York Central Train Layout and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division Railroad.

Thanks for reading!!
 

 

P.C.C.M. #113 Part 1 On The A.P.R.R. - The Outbound Begins...!

Welcome to another exciting Penn Central Car Movement featuring 3 layouts - Sir John's New York Central Train Layout, PC Ralph's Kings Port Division Railroad and my Atlantic Pacific Railroad.

Today the crew at Rock Ridge Yard will work on picking up a number of outbound freight that will head to both NYCTL and KPD railroads, as well as making room in the yard for some inbound freight.

The breakdown for today's move are as follows:

ShopRite has 3 empty freight cars that will be returned to Merrimac, NH via the KPD. PC Richard & Son Warehouse has 3 40' Hi-Cube box cars loaded with appliances for their Long Island Warehouse via the NYCTL. American Hardware also has a trio of Hi-Cube box cars for Peerless Appliances and a pair of 50' Box Cars for Quality Fabrications loaded with miscellaneous hardware and parts via the KPD. Morton Salt will send their Morton covered hopper to Cavendish Foods loaded with salt via the KPD. 

1:87 Yardmaster NJ John gathers the crew for today's jobs. Two lucky engineers are going to be in the seats of their newly acquired engines: APRR SW1500 #101 and APRR SW1000 #102 will be working the moves in Rock Ridge. 

APRR #101 will have 1:87 Engineer Kai in the cab and make the moves as AP train RR-1

APRR #102 will have 1:87 Engineer Jim C. in the cab...

Kai is going to pick up 3 Hi-Cube box cars at PC Richard & Son and 3 Hi-Cube box cars at American Hardware. Two 2 KP&W box cars were unloaded earlier in the week and positioned on departure track 'C'...

The first set of cars have been pulled and blocked for both the KPD and NYCTL...

KPD cars on departure track 'C'...

NYCTL cars on Departure track 'B'...

Next move will be to pick up the three box cars at ShopRite...

Drops them on the West Ladder and then does a run around on the East Ladder...

Now he can add them to the cars on Departure track 'C' for the KPD...

The car over at Morton Salt needs to be added to the KPD train, so Kai grabs that car...

Another run around...

...And the car is blocked on the KPD track...

APRR #102 is called into action and gets to run the next set of moves in the yard and his crew will be AP train RR-11. There's more than 25 cars that need to come into Rock Ridge Yard from the industrial complex and industries outside of Rock Ridge. In order to accommodate them, NJ John wants them out! He's called the dispatcher at Weehawken to send a Penn Central crew to pick up these cars!

Jim C. starts pulling the cars. All of them will be placed on West Ladder track 11...

Jim C. has finished and now the crews await the crew from Weehawken...

Penn Central SD35 #6014 arrives at CP South and checks in with 1:87 tower operator Rich. Rich sends him to CP Rock so he can check in with NJ John and get loaded up...

The PC crew at CP Rock...

The crew cuts the caboose...

A short time later, adds it to the end of the train...

At Rock Ridge Yard Limits, the PC crew awaits the instructions and signal from 1:87 tower operator Bob at Little Jamaica Tower...

And heads out...!

Next stop...Weehawken!

Kai and Jim C. are finished and tie down in the yard....

That's all for today. Tomorrow the AP crew will pull freight from Cargill and R.M.O. Electric over at the Rock Ridge Industrial area and from C&P Restaurant Supply, Freihofer's Bakeries and Marcal.

Thanks for reading!!

New Addition To My Operating Sessions

Hello everyone! Welcome to another update to my layout! 

This update involves adding some track to an existing industry (yes, you may think I'm nuts). I saw an opportunity to add another siding to Mike's Lumber. Current track to the lumber yard comes off the Little Jamaica secondary. It can handle 4-5 cars, depending on the length of the car used. In the past, I had 72' center beam cars. If you saw my last blog post, I am sending the railroad back in time to an era that covers the 60's to the late 80's. 

I picked up a number of 60' Bulkhead flat cars at a good price when Walthers had a sale. Then I found a trio of Penn Central 53' GSC Bulkhead flat cars online. Both of these will be used in my virtual ops as well as when I host my operating sessions.

I saw an area where I could add an additional track without ripping out too much existing track and add some additional switching moves to any session. 

The new turnout sits opposite the turnout that goes into C&P Restaurant Supply. Coming off the switch is a section of 24" radius track...

I added about 14" of straight track to see how it would work...

With the addition of the track and cork, this is how it came out. In addition, I went out and bought a forklift made by a company called Artitec on Evilbay since none of the dealers they listed had any...

Below is a video of the newly installed track at Mike's Lumber...

I had to change the couplers on these cars. While they have Proto metal couplers, they didn't swing enough in the coupler pocket and the cars were derailing on the 24" curve. Why I don't know, so I added Kadee #146 long shank couplers. Once the change was made, there were no issues spotting the cars. 

That's all for now. I have no plans to add more track to the railroad (I've said that before), and this new addition should be fun to switch.

Thanks for reading!

Layout Update

 Hello everyone!

It’s been a while since I made a post regarding the layout, Penn Central Car Movements notwithstanding. This one is a different post from any other post I’ve made.

A few weeks ago, during one of my live operating sessions, I was thinking about the upcoming PCCM (scheduled to launch mid-October). Unlike the other two participants, their railroads model a specific era. My railroad is more modern. However, when I need to participate in our virtual PCCM op sessions, I must move all freight cars and engines that are not suitable for that era. It’s a major undertaking!  This takes me a good 2 hours to move them and ‘hide’ them on the layout where they can’t be seen during the time I take my photos and videos. 

Once those cars are moved out of the way, I need to add the freight cars needed for my PCCM virtual ops. This takes a couple of hours as well as some freight cars need to go where they were dropped off in the previous session. These are outbound cars. Also, I need to pull the cars needed for the ‘inbound’ part of our PCCM sessions. Another hour, maybe more since I must stage them on a track with engines to bring into the scene. 

That brings me back to my last live op session, September 3rd. I usually have 5 guys running various jobs on the layout, from Yardmaster, Engine hostler and Engineer. Three of these guys are always here and two of them rotate between the yardmaster duties and engineer duties. I asked them what they thought if I decided to ‘roll back’ the railroad to an earlier era. All of them agreed that it sounded like a good idea. So, we begin….

The railroad is going to be set in the Penn Central / Conrail era using motive power and freight cars from the PC, B&O, EL, CR and some other roads that I have. The cutoff time is the late 80’s, even though CSX was in existence at that time. Everyone associates CSX with modern times including yours truly. 

The buildings on the railroad all fit that period, including Tropicana. No need to remove any of them from the layout. 

Tropicana will get an entire new string of reefers composing a mix of 50' and 57' reefers. 

A couple of vehicles will come off the layout. The intermodal terminal will get a major makeover from large well cars to a small presence. 53’ flat cars with trucks and 89’ flat cars with trucks will make up the new (old) look.

The auto rack terminal will now have Bi-level and Tri-level open auto racks. Mike’s Lumber will have both 53’ and 60’ bulkhead flat cars. C&P Restaurant Supply will have 50’ & 57’ reefers as well as some 40’/50’/60’ box cars. Shapeless Steel will have the same type of cars as in the past; nothing over 53’. Marcal and Freihofers will have the same type of freight cars as in the past. Ideal Auto Parts remain with both 60’ & 86’ auto parts cars. 

Three Amigos Warehouse will still have box cars. The Tank Terminal will get a makeover with different types of tank cars. Cargill will get some of the shorter 17,600 corn syrup tank cars as well as covered hoppers. R.M.O. Electric remains the same with coal hoppers moving the ones with the CSX logos off the layout. 

I started to make the moves on a Friday night, packing up a whopping 47 freight cars including 37 Trinity 64’ reefers of which 28 were Tropicana! The next day I did another 24 cars, and on Sunday more cars were packed up. I stepped back and said to myself ‘What did I get myself into!’ There’s no turning back and within a week I packed up and put away over 120 freight cars. As of September 12th, I had about 20 freight cars left to put away. What was the biggest hurdle? Finding the boxes for these freight cars! I have over 40 rolling carts of which many of them are in the basement and the rest in the train room. Those last 20 cars are the boxes I need to find to put everything away. There's still a good 40-60 freight cars on the layout that fit both time periods. Freight cars were usually built to last about 40-50 years. No need to remove them. 

Some images of what was involved in the changes...

Staging never looked so empty!!

Rock Ridge Yard is getting changed as well...

28 reefers were packed up that serviced Tropicana. No worries, I have plenty of earlier reefers to fill Tropicana and more!!

The nice thing about making this change will be taking all PCCM and non-PCCM cars that I use for my virtual op sessions and adding them to the layout. They’re all in carts under the layout. We’re talking over 100 cars, plus the new ones that were not featured in my PCCM’s that will be visible for the first time! 

Now, what will that do to my in person operating sessions? Absolutely nothing. The moves will be the same, just not with modern freight cars and large modern engines. All of the large SD70/SD80/ES44/ET44 will be mothballed. SD45 engines will be the largest as of now. All of my Geeps, RS units and SW/MP switchers will be used. I do have a nice fleet of Penn Central and Conrail engines as well as other engines for that time period. We’re going to add some thru trains that will travel along the railroad. I have an NYC Pacemaker box car train that will be added as well as a B&O Sentinel box car train. I’ll have a new Juice Train and an intermodal/auto rack train to take the place of the previous ones. 

One area that can’t be changed is my Amtrak Station. While Amtrak started May 1, 1971 I can still run some Penn Central passenger trains as well as some NJ Transit, and some early Amtrak. These may run during my live sessions as I have a couple of guys that like to run passenger trains. When company comes over, I run mostly passenger trains and the Juice train as Tropicana is the largest industry on the railroad. 

I’m looking forward to seeing what the guys think at my next operating session, which is tentatively scheduled for September 24th. It's going to be a fun time and I'm hoping everyone enjoys my session. 

That’s all for now. Isn’t that enough? I think so…