Update For The Florida Layout

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

We're down in Florida for a few weeks. When the weather is not so great at times (like rain), we'll do some work on the layout. For some new followers, the layout in Florida is a true modern layout, point to point with two levels. It can handle a max of 3 operators, and designed to be operated solo as well.

There's still much work to be done, especially on the industries. I have most of the kits, and will work on them when I can. 

One area that I wanted to work on is the turntable. I'm using the Atlas turntable with the motor installed. Since I'm using a handful of engines, the purpose of the turntable is to turn them around for the next run. It adds one more process to an operating session. 

Since this needs to be aligned with the rest of the layout, I added some framework a little lower so that I can 'level' the tracks that go from the turntable to the rest of the layout and storage tracks. I do have a limited space, so I can't take advantage of every slot off the turntable. 

Here's the finished process. I added a piece of cardboard to the area, then added some HO scale cork. Painted the area to match the rest of the area. 

The final results of the area are below. It has the capacity of 5 tracks; one of which can be used for the SW1500 units only. It's a short track. Yes, I could have left it out, but those who know me, do know if the real estate is available, I'll use it!

Hayes wheel stops will be brought down on the next trip as I have them at the ready. This will protect an engine from doing a swan dive off the railroad. 

The next step is to power the turntable. Since it runs on DC, I needed to add a power supply. I had an MRC power pack that was not used on the NJ layout, so I brought it down to FL. It needed to be mounted near the turntable, with access close by. Since I'm using it to run the turntable with the variable DC, I wanted it mounted below the turntable. Since there are no true supports for any type of wood, I came up with an idea. A trip to the local Home Depot and picked up a pair of 12"x10" shelf brackets. I mounted them on an angle, and then I put the power pack resting on the brackets. It will be held in place with velcro for ease of removal, if needed. 

The wires are installed to the turntable motor and I added the wires to the turntable track. Next step is to add the drops to each track and then connect to the rest of the system. However, everything came to a halt! In order for me to get everything connected, I needed to add an auto reverser to the turntable track! The part is called a DCC Specialties PSX-AR auto reverser. It works on DCC only. It flips the power to the track within seconds, creating a smooth running transition from one section of track to another and avoiding a short circuit.

I did pick one up at the Amherst Train show the end of January. However, in my quick turnaround from the show and coming to Florida, I left it back home! Geez what was I thinking! I was thinking I needed to secure the NJ house and then head to FL. So this will wait until I come back down to FL March 4th. 

More to follow as it happens! 

Thanks for reading!!

P.C.C.M. #68 - Inbound Portion On The A.P.R.R.

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad Blog!

Today we're going to kick off the inbound part of the series of #68 in the Penn Central Car Movements or P.C.C.M. for short.

There's inbound action going on two other layouts - Sir John's N.Y.C.T.L. and PC Ralph's K.P. & W. railroads. Both have incredible action and scenery!

The A.P.R.R. has a 10 car inbound train from Weehawken to Rock Ridge. 

It's a hazy, sunny and windy day at Rock Ridge. Weather forecast is cold with the chance of snow.

Here we see PC Extra 7675 passing thru West Harold and thru Little Jamaica en route to Rock Ridge Yard.

PC Extra 7675 checks in at CP South with tower operator 1/87th Rich and proceeds up the east ladder to the north end of Rock Ridge stopping short of CP Rock.

A quick crew change and the yard crew will take the engines over to Richmond Hill Engine Terminal for servicing and maintenance. 

AP #100 SW1500 is called into action to break down and classify the inbound freight. Once sorted, another crew will head out with the local deliveries.

AP #200 'Spirit Of Jay' is going to lend a hand in getting the freight cars blocked to head out for deliveries.

 EB 809823 from Gervais Pipe will head over to Shapeless Steel for an ongoing project in the town.

HRC 957081 has some food products for C&P Restaurant Supply. This operation runs 7 days a week. People have to eat, right?

AP #302 will be the local engine of the day with 1/87th NJ John and brakeman 1/87th Mark on board. 1/87th NJ John is the most qualified engineer, brakeman and conductor (along with tower operator and electrical engineer) on the APRR. Behind him is 1/87 Norman who is qualified like John, plus he's the official APRR Staff photographer. The men of all trades!

Ready to depart the yard, Train RI-3 will make 3 stops today. First stop - Ideal Auto Parts. 

The cars are cut on the main as they have to pull 3 loads out which are going to the Ford Plant in Louisville, KY with parts. 

Next stop - C&P Restaurant Supply. 

Since the car was on the front of the train (someone forgot the protocol for blocking cars) the crew needs to do a run around and shove the car on to the siding...

Next stop - Shapeless Steel. Since the last car was on the end of the train, they drop the 3 60' auto box cars on the main for a few and then proceed to spot The EB gondola on the siding.

A quick couple up to the 3 box cars and they had back to the yard...

Looks like 1/87th Sir Neal took the new corporate helicopter for a test flight with pilot 1/87th Sam to get an aerial view of the 3 auto box cars being spotted. Nice work!

The crew drops the caboose on west ladder track 1 and they call it a day!

Back home!

The ballast car will remain in the yard to be used as needed. The 4 PC PS-2 covered hoppers with sand from T&R Gravel will head over to the engine terminal on the next crew change.

That's a wrap for my inbound portion of P.C.C.M. #68. Don't forget to check out the other two participating layouts! 

 Sir John's N.Y.C.T.L. and PC Ralph's K.P. & W. !!

Thanks for reading!!

Florida Layout Update - December 2019

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

We're down in the Southern Command (aka Boynton Beach, FL) for the winter. I'll be going back and forth on two occasions between now and April 4th, when we go back next December. 

The last time I was down here and was running the layout, I had some issues with the track plan on the lower level center. The issues that I saw had to do with the industries and switching. 

Here's a video of what I had put down and why I am changing it. 

As many of you who know me, if I see or told something doesn't function the way it should and a recommendation is made to change it to make it better, I will do it!

That being said, here's what I did:

First - Tearing up the existing track and cork. I will savage and reuse most of the track. The cork, goes by the wayside. 

Next step - sand and clean the excess remnants of the cork and place some track down to get a feel on how it will look...

Now that I have a good idea on what it will look like, I picked up the tracks and put down the cork. Once the glue dried, it was painted and now ready for track.

Now it's time to put down the track. I did make a couple small changes, basically adding a second track to one area in the middle and one area on the left side. 

The other track will take you to two (possibly 3) industries. One will be a small warehouse that I have up north and will come down the end of January. The other building will be modern Walthers Warehouse building to serve both tracks. 

We did tweak this area and had the track leading to the front tracks come off by the yard on the east wall. Works better and if there's another operator it won't interfere with the pellet and plastic industries. 

The track out of the yard has two switches. One will take you to either the main line or to the plastic pellet transfer facility. This will handle covered hopper cars. 

The second switch takes you to either the two tracks in front of the pellet facility which will house the Acme Plastics Industry. It will be a rectangular building and it will work well with the other industry. This will be served by box cars. 

The track on the east side which handles tank cars will remain the same. It will handle propane & ethanol cars. 

Another change to the lower level (and upper for that matter) are the way the industries in the corners will be built. Due to the small area, and wanting it to look big, I'm going to build the structures as flats. I can make a structure look huge! Take for example the ADM grain structure. 

If you look at this industry, the footprint is fairly large. This building is going to be on the upper level west corner. How do you make this industry look big? You make it a flat! I will be taking the concrete square building and make it a flat which will be about 12" - 14" in length and in the corner I will take the silos and instead of assembling them as you see above, I will use the halves and make on long set of silos! 

We're going to do this to the cement industry 

As well as the sand industry

And the warehouse which will be American Hardware (already a cornerstone flat type industry)

The upper level is pretty much set, nothing has changed as far as track and I do have the operation part of the upper level in place and tested. 

The lower level switching will be a combination of shoving with one area that will need to be pulled from the yard and then shoved. I like this as you have to make a couple of moves in order to service the one area in the middle or the lower level to the right side. We're not talking about switching a train with 12 cars. We're talking about 3-4 cars at a time. Pull empty cars, drop off the loads. Head back to the yard to service the next industry. 

Total time to do this project - 5 days. The tracks are powered up and have been tested. The center is less congested, functions and will make switching the industries fun. I do have 2 guys in my development that are into model trains; one who used to have N scale and lives around the corner, so he can walk here. The other guy is nearby. One other friend lives in Ft. Lauderdale and expressed an interest to see it in action. If I can get 2 guys here together, we can have a great operating session. Yardmaster assembling the trains, 1 guy working the lower level industries, the other working the upper level. More on the upper level down the road.....

Unlike the northern layout, this one will need paperwork / switch lists.  Many of you know the APRR Northern Division doesn't use paperwork and not a fan of paperwork. However, this layout needs it and I'm going to work on that as I progress on building the industries and putting them in place. I've used them on a couple layouts, and this layout is a perfect candidate to use the switch list. Not too big, but will take some time to operate. 

Next trip down I have some structures already built from my previous layouts which I will use here. They fit and I want to use them since some have meaning to others (I measured before I came down). 

Thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year! See you in 2020!