Ops Session with Engineer Ed

Greetings All,

On Friday July 8th the New York Central Train Layout was honored to have 1:1 scale Engineer Ed visit and participate in an operating session. Those who follow this blog will remember that Engineer Ed had been under the weather for a pretty long time. I am happy to report that E.E. is feeling better and has resumed his rightful place at the throttle. After a very enjoyable 3.5 hours of moving freight cars to various industries and in and out of the yards E.E. and I were finished for the day.

During this 'actual' ops session I planned ahead for the next 'virtual' ops session by having some of the proposed 'virtual' ops freight cars getting spotted or pulled during this 'actual' ops session. Kind of like a buy one op get one free deal!

Here's a photo summary of the action with Engineer Ed;

    The first train we ran was ML-7 powered by four GP35s. I was just not ready to put it away and thought                 E.E. would enjoy seeing it run the layout. Here it is as pictured from the last blog entry. 
Although it just ran from North Side Yard to Terminal Yard it was kind of majestic with it's over sized auto                                                                racks and four unit power.

ML-7 hits the High Line (Thanks John B.!!) on a slow speed run to Terminal Yard much to the delight of  model railroading rail fans. Fellow modeler and blogger John Bruce came up with the name the High Line as I continue struggling with place names for the layout. For more on John's model railroading check his blog at  http://modelrrmisc.blogspot.com/ 

   

Here is ML-7 on track 1 in Terminal Yard.The two gons with pipe loads are from Gervais Pipe and Fitting and destined for the Hudson Valley Ag Coop on the Kings Port Division

Iron ore for Kings Port Steel being loaded at T&R Gravel

PC160502 and TPFX 5510 will head out to Battaglia Brothers Warehouse

Printed food containers and bottles for food service industries on the K.P.D.  

An empty boxcar to be returned to Canton Box

PC 77047 at Neal's Lumber and Hardware now loaded with wood soda crates for 

Woodstock Hills All Natural Soda

A brand new heavy duty forklift for Kings Port Steel has been placed on a newly spotted flat car.

Three specially equipped NYC 50' double door boxcars spotted at All-City Storage will be heading back to Peerless Appliance

KP&W 50335, NYC 53051 and NYC 173861 now empty will be going back to ACME auto parts in Mayfield NY

Terminal Yard is in good shape at the end of the Ops session with Engineer Ed.

E.E. and I moved a lot of freight and kept the yards fluid throughout the day. ML-7 ran to start the festivities. General merchandise freight trains were in and out. Some mail and express traffic was handled. We picked up a string of loaded coal hoppers from Hudson Coal and worked many an industry. Guest engines in honor of E.E. being over were the L.I.R.R. FA units on track 8. 

Our last job was switching covered hoppers at Cargill. We arrived with a ten car train, pulled five empties and shoved in five loads. The five loaded hoppers left on the industrial lead will be handled on the next trick

The SCL covered hopper had some coupler issues. The 20 year old EZ Mates tended to remain open after a shove move. The oncoming train crew was notified and it will be repaired with ol' reliable Kadee #5s.

We also switched out Ralph's Grocery Warehouse. The UP car is a track cleaning car so this was a good way to clean the siding and enjoy some rail fanning. Being a mostly lone wolf modeler and operator I never really get to rail fan these locations being switched. With E.E. at the throttle and me as head brakeman it was nice to watch the trains going in and out of this area from up close.

Thanks for Reading!