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Friday, January 1, 2016

More Holiday Mail and Express Action

Greetings All,

Happy New Year!

Recently fellow modeler and blogger John Bruce recently posted a fine entry on his model railroad's Mail and Express cars. John included some personal observations and some nice photos of some of his rolling stock and motive power. http://modelrrmisc.blogspot.com/2015/12/holiday-mail-and-express.html  . John was kind enough to give me a shout out and this week I'm continuing the running of the Holiday Mail and Express cars on my layout. Here's some recent photos of the action;

B&O H16-44s 926 and 927 lug a train of mail and express cars from Empire City Station. The B&O had 10 such units on their roster.
I believe the B&O H16-44s were later renumbered into the 6700 series

The H16-44s roar out of the tunnel on their way to Terminal Yard / Staging 
which represents my connection to the rest of the world.

These photos were shot in sequence as the train was moving up the grade.

A NH track cleaner, B&O REA car and some REA TOFC cars roll out of the tunnel
This tunnel should be named "Elbow Protector Tunnel" since that is it's purpose. 

Some USPS trailers and ATSF# 4159 bring up the rear just in front of the caboose.
The Impack cars are a bit new for this train but for Holiday display running they were more
reliable for me than the 85' cars I usually use for this.   

The B&O powered M&E train on Track 1 has clearance into Terminal Yard.
A NYC freight waits patiently on track 2.

From last year a pair of FA units haul some Flexi Van cars towards Empire City Station. For me nothing says M&E like the NYC Flexi Vans.

A Flexi Van trailer in US Mail service.

NYC subsidiary P&LE was on the Flexi Van band wagon (probably without much choice) while few other railroads embraced the concept

Billboard lettering advertising the Flexi-Van Service. These trailers are on a Mark III car. The NYC Mark IV car was fitted for passenger service. 

Some M&E Trains on the NYCTL back in 2011
An A-B set of Baldwin Sharks haul a Mail and Express Train towards Empire City 
The Baldwin S12s are protection diesels for the grade from Empire City to Terminal Yard.

ATSF #4159 buffers the NYC baggage cars from the TOFC cars. 
At this time I did not own any 85' TOFC flats. 
The upper level track of the layout has yet to be started 

 A rider coach brings up the rear.

A lot has changed on the layout since these 2011 pictures! One thing that has not changed is my enjoyment of running mail and express trains. As my knowledge and fleet grows the trains resemble their 1 to 1 counter parts a little more each year.  

2 comments:

  1. Those look really great! Do I see at least one Roundhouse 40-foot BX car there, in B&O blue? The Roundhouses were little-publicized, but they were out there! I'll have to post some more of my baggage-express equipment.

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    1. Thanks John! You nailed it. The blue B&O 40 REA car is a Roundhouse kit. I've come to really like their 40' boxcar kits a lot. Not many left at my LHS though. Looking forward to Mail and Express blog post!

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