October Layout Operations Summary

 Greetings All,

 

October Layout Operations Summary

Welcome to another look at the model railroad operations on my home layout. Today we'll take a look at some things I added to the ops, some things that worked well and some that should not be repeated.

First Stop Sub-Level 5 in the Operations Rabbit Hole

During the month of October I spent sometime updating a large number of freight waybills for my freight car fleet with particular attention to the ice bunker reefers that have been in the fleet for two decades with many not yet being included in the layout operations.

Over many years the fleet of 40' ice bunker reefers and 50' ice bunker express reefers had all been upgraded with metal wheels and Kadee couplers. They make for a colorful train and were great to see from a railfan and operations perspective.

Four Lightning Striped NYC F7s powered Train RM-12 (Refrigerated Merchandise) that consisted of all of the newly added reefer cars to the layout operations.

Are The Waybills Important? 

Actually they're not. Most of my reading and viewing of layout operations with hardcore operators and 1:1 railroaders revealed that those in actual train service do not care about what is in a car or where it came from. The only thing they care about is where it is going.

That said some model railroaders, including yours truly, enjoy having the waybills which for me make the model railroad operations realistic.

Layout Operations Before The Waybills

Prior to getting involved in car card and waybill operations my attempts to operate the layout delivering freight cars to various industries resembled my experiences as an urban driver looking for a parking space. Oh wait, there's an empty spot!!!

Back to the Operations!!

Catch the RM-12 as it heads to Terminal Yard!!

Hotshot Train FAST-50 (Ford Auto Service Train) was led by second generation NYC power, a GP35 and two U30Bs.

E33s powered New Haven Trains between Cedar Hill to Terminal Yard.

A pair of old Athearn BB super powered PRR F7As were assigned to Terminal Yard. These two old workhorses, while noisy, performed very well. Note the cars on track #2 with their new waybills that were part of the "paperwork operations".

An Atlas Classic PRR RS1 9921 was assigned to Bedford Park Yard.

The 9921 also handled the BP-12 / BP-41 transfer runs to and from Terminal Yard. Below Train BP-41 hustles thru Bedford with important traffic for the Bedford Park Ford Plant.

The hind end of Train BP-41 features a pair of PRR 50' boxcars making their first operations revenue runs.

The Empire Belt fielded their fan favorite Alco FA-FB-FB-FA set to handle yard, local and transfer duties.

Empire Belt RR freight traffic transferred to and from North Side Yard to Terminal Yard was handled by EBRR Trains EB-2 and EB-3.

In the October Op Train EB-3 began to handle the interchange traffic from Terminal Yard to North Side Yard on a rotating basis with the New York Central / Penn Central. This worked well. Prior to this the EB-3 was a caboose lite move back to North Side Yard and NYC/PC Train EC-1 handled the freight transfer from Terminal Yard to NSY.

Train EB-3 heads to North Side Yard with the interchange traffic.

Penn Central E33 #4605 had the dubious honor of powering an empty coal hopper extra that outlawed on the Bedford Secondary as it waited for a yard track in Terminal Yard.

The Long Island RR continued to be an important interchange partner with Train MA-3 delivering thirteen (13) freight cars to North Side Yard and Train MA-4 taking forty six (46) freight cars from NSY back to Fresh Pond Yard.

Three locomotives were sent in MA-3 to power the forty six (46) car MA-4 which presented some challenges for both the EBRR and LIRR.

The long MA-4 was set up on the Belt Line so as not to foul the yard. The EBRR crew has the LIRR caboose and waits to tack it onto the MA-4 when it clears the switch under the Railbox car at the bottom right. .

The LIRR caboose is tacked on. 1:87 Emery was in town at his favorite spot to catch some of the action.

LIRR Train MA-4 heads back to Fresh Pond Yard with forty six (46) freight cars.

In other action two GG1s came to the rescue of the Tuscan 4910 to get a passenger train up the 2.5% grade between Empire City Station to East Bedford Station.

A PRR hotshot LCL Merchandise Service Train powered by a GG1 got into the operations.

The October Ops closed out with the E33s bringing Train HN-2 from Terminal Yard to Cedar Hill Yard.

Check out the Electric Action at RA Tower.

Final Thoughts and Comments

Minuses

The October layout operations were overly ambitious for the season. Homeowner Autumn chores took a big chunk of time away from the layout. The below freight train with cars featuring new waybills sat on track 2 in Terminal Yard where I staged it for the duration. Staging the train on this track was a mistake. Traffic into Terminal Yard with this long track clogged and out of service hindered both freight and passenger operations.

46 Defense?

The forty six (46) car interchange with the LIRR at North Side Yard while challenging was a bit much. I'll try to keep this move to about 30 cars or less. If traffic warrants an LIRR extra will be sent out to keep the car count down at North Side Yard and keep that yard fluid.

Pluses

On the plus side seldom used trains were powered by seldom used power with a nod toward the electric motors in the fleet. Another plus was the paper operations getting some freight cars never used before in layout operations into the ops mix. Ironically some of those cars were still awaiting movement at Terminal Yard!!

The continued goal of cycling equipment on and off the layout was met and it's now time to get ready for the November layout operations which will include a PCCM 108 virtual op. 

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you soon!!!

Flea Market Finds

 Greetings All,

Flea Market Finds

During an October visit to Queen of Hearts Antiques in Buford, Georgia I came across the Lindy's Trains booth and scored the following freight cars.

Getting The New Freight Cars Into Revenue Service

All freight cars from this purchase received basically the same treatments that included a blast of Testor's Dullcote, metal wheels with their faces painted either black or burnt umber where required, additional weight, Kadee couplers, confirmation of coupler heights meeting the Kadee gauge, painted trucks and underframes.

By keeping to the above minimum standards every locomotive and piece of rolling stock can couple up with each other for reliable operation and provide a somewhat uniform non toy like look for equipment that is running on the layout.

DT&I 50' Boxcar #13650

Accurail DT&I 50' double door boxcar with an A-Line track cleaning pad system installed. The DT&I is one of my favorite railroads and the track slider pads are the preferred track cleaning method for the layout so this was a nice surprise. The DT&I was also known as Henry Ford's Railroad and was later controlled by the PRR and PC. This was the most expensive purchase of the day, twelve dollars.

The DT&I 13650 is now in service. A strip of wood was added on each side of the slider pad that is painted black. This was necessary on a 50' car as the center of the car off tracks enough to allow the pad to get stuck in turnouts.

B&O 40' Boxcars

A pair of Athearn BB B&O 40' boxcars with metal wheels and EZ Mate knuckle couplers. Five dollars each.

The weights were already painted as well!

One B&O 466378 is now in service with Kadee #5s in lieu of the EZ-Mates. The other B&O 466378 headed to the Patti O Paint Shop for stripping and repainting. More on that later.

Union Pacific 50' RBL #451360

A Details West 50' UP RBL kit caught my eye during the box browsing. I like the detailed the paint job on this car and I thought it would be an interesting build since I don't recall ever building a model from this company. Purchase price: five dollars.

The UP 451360 enters revenue service. This was a tricky kit to build. Attaching the ladders with styrene cement and a small brush without marring the paint was a challenge that took a good amount of patience. The kit does not come with weights so I added about 3.5 ounces of weight using a metal weight from my weights box and 1/4 ounce stick on wheel weights. The black trucks were sprayed with gray primer and brake wheel and assembly were painted silver to match the prototype. 

American President Line Containers

As I was leaving the booth I saw a stack of APL 45' and 40' intermodal shipping containers that caught my eye and were a great find. I've been on the lookout for some since I added a five unit double stack well cars last year.

The APL containers were priced at one dollar each. I bought ten! The containers look to be Walthers products with some being painted and lettered by a prior owner using different numbers. They were in kit form and required adding the inter-box connectors from the sprue that held the container floor. There are a few of these IBCs still flying around the train room!

DIY/ZIM 40' Container

This Athearn DIY/ZIM 40' intermodal container was sitting next to the APL containers and looking sad when I started to leave with the APL containers so for a buck I added it to the haul. You can see these on the roads and rails today.

Stacking The APL Containers

The APL containers have been stacked in this configuration using the inter-box connectors from the container sprues or homemade IBCs using a 1:87 scale drain pipe from an IHC house kit.

The lower containers each received one ounce of weight using 1/4 ounce self stick wheel weights. Note the well car can only handle 40' containers in the well.

The arrangement of the 40'ers on the bottom and 45'ers on top is prototypical. BTW, the Union Pacific outsourced it's domestic intermodal business to the APL with a ten year agreement in the mid 1980s. The APL containers look right at home in the yellow well cars.

Last But Not Least

Remember the second B&O 40" boxcar mentioned above going to the Patti-O Paint Shop? Here it is still under the auspices of the paint shop for final touch ups of some overspray. 

The TH&B 3650 will join TH&B 3284 which is another Patti-O Paint Shop alumni.

Final Thoughts and Comments

I went to check out Lindy's Trains hoping to find an Athearn BB 40' boxcar that I could paint as the TH&B 3650. Although I did manage to come home with more than that I want to state for the record I used a lot of restraint and left some good stuff for other modelers.

The ten APL containers were the biggest and best score which filled out the previously empty five unit well car set.

Thanks for reading

See you soon

HO Scale Auto Frame Loads

 Greetings All,

HO Scale Auto Frame Loads

Model railroaders of a certain age will remember that American made automobiles were made with steel frames until the early 1970's when unibody construction appeared under mid size and smaller cars. To this date certain cars continued to use the full steel frames along with pickup trucks and some other large SUVs.

"Trailer Train Flatcar with Auto/Truck Frames" by Gary Lee Todd, Ph.D. is marked with CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/?ref=openverse.

Looking to increase realistic traffic and some interesting flatcar loads for the Bedford Park Ford Plant on my layout I came across JJM Railroad Enterprises Auto Frame Load Kits in September, 2024. I purchased four boxes. Each box contains 80 frames. purchased four  kits that would be sufficient for four flatcar loads.

Here are one of eight sprues containing ten auto frames. Four boxes means cutting ten auto frames from thirty two sprues. The directions call for stacking the frames thirteen high but I chose to go twelve high which gave me six stacks per box with eight left over. The twelve high was done to make sure the subsequential blocking wouldn't make the loads excess height and prevent movement around the layout.

It took awhile but I finally glued all seventy two stacks together and then glued two stacks together to create three double side by side stacks per flatcar. The stacks were then painted with rattle can gloss black and a coat of Testor's Dullcote.

To block the frames and secure them to the flatcars I used Bass strip wood and the metal pole from a few lawn flags. The wood and poles have been painted with a rattle can rust colored primer.

Two stacks completed!!!  I toyed with adding the thirteenth frames to the stacks but decided not to. As shown the flatcar with loads are as high as a Hi-Cube boxcar.

Six stacks completed on two Bachmann PC 50' flatcars. I chose to use 50' flatcars in lieu of 89' flatcars due to curve restrictions at Bedford Park.

Six more stacks completed for use on Athearn BB 50' flatcars. The loads for the BB flatcars are removable.

After some touch up paint the auto frames are ready for movement to the Bedford Park Ford Plant. The auto frame loads are glued to the PC flatcars using CA. I have five of these cars and swapping an empty flat for the loaded one will be a simple affair.

The Wabash and PRR Blue Box flats with their metal stakes allowed for easy blocking, insertion and removal of the loads which can be used on other BB 50' flatcars as needed.

Ford here we come!!!

The following week a monster Train FAST-50 was lensed crossing the Empire City Highline with various freight cars for the Bedford Park Ford Plant

Two PC flatcars of auto frames was sandwiched between APRR and KP&W auto parts cars.

On the headend PRR and Wabash flatcars of auto frames cross the Cornelius Vanderbilt Bridge as the head to the City of Bedford.

The Fast-50 heads to Terminal Yard.

After the FAST-50 arrived in Terminal Yard a pair of Alco C425s hustle a block of cars to the Ford Plant.

Train BP-41 heads to Bedford Park with hot cars for the Ford Plant.

Note that the BP-41consists of steel coils, lubricating oil, auto parts and auto frames

along with boxcars from Ford parts suppliers IDEAL in Rock Ridge, NJ and ACME in Mayfield, NY head to the Ford Plant.

Final Thought and Comments

As you can see the auto frames make for a unique and interesting loads that can be used on flatcars of various lengths (50'-60'-89') or in gondolas with proper bracing. American Model Builders manufactured kit #350 for the gondola loads. Unfortunately they are no longer in business.

The JJM kit directions recommend using Plastruct dimensional products and scale chains to create the tie down system or 12"x12" lumber for the deck supports and 6"x6" lumber for the tie downs which is pretty much what I chose.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!!

See you soon!!!