Possible Commuter Train Ops For The N.Y.C.T.L.

Greetings All,

This past week I did a little scenery work in and around Terminal Yard that included adding some figures to the passenger platform and began examining possible commuter operations for the N.Y.C.T.L. 

I'll be toying around with the commuter operations more as the Terminal Yard expansion moves further towards completion. Over the course of a couple of days I toyed with several options. Let's take a look at some of the preliminary ideas and consists.

First up here are my commuters. I sprayed them with Testor's Dullcote to prepare them for repainting. The figures are 1/100 scale and look to fit into some of my passenger cars very nicely.

The last of the 1/100 scale standing figures have been glued in place on the platform. I also added about five feet of Lichen behind the wall for some depth and color.   

Some burnt grass was added to the newest facades where the buildings meet the retaining wall. 

Speaking of The Facades here's three of them waiting on the New Haven RDC3s. These two RDC3's are Athearn BB products and neither one is powered. An NYC RDC3 from Proto 1000 is at the rear of the consist and that one is powered.  

With the RDCs having departed a commuter train featuring Atlas PC GP38 #7675 (The 'Sir Larry'), six Model Power PRR passenger cars manufactured in Brazil and an Atlas FP7 on the rear rolls into Terminal Yard. The Model Power cars came with metal wheels and I equipped them with body mounted knuckle couplers many moons ago. They worked very well in this set up. I like this train!

Here's the FP7 at the other end of the commuter train. The NYC GP20 continues as Terminal Yard power and is tacking the caboose on a departing ore train. The ore train is part of some intra layout moves I need to make to prepare for P.C.C.M. 41. I'll cover those in the next blog entry.

A Bachmann NYC Doodlebug with two Athearn BB HW NYC chair cars at the platform. eh......probably not going to make the final cut. I do like the white face and stripes though! 

Here's another attempt at a commuter consist this time with NYC 72' streamlined passenger cars from Athearn. I tried this one with  engines at one end and and RDC cab control car at the other end. The passenger cars have talgo mounted couplers and that was a mess to say the least. The two NYC engines are MRC Platinum units. They'd be perfect in this assignment.

Looking at the NYC consist we can see an RDC3 that I was using as a cab control car for this end of the train on the left. Looking at the passenger cars chosen we have two coaches on each end and two vista domes sandwiching a diner acting as a snack car. What strikes me as a no go here is it's almost impossible to enter or exit the train. Not counting the RDC there are two doors between the remaining five cars. Not a good idea for a commuter train.

Back to the drawing board I came up with this four car set of Bachmann Spectrum coaches (one is a combine) with a P-2000 NYC GP7 on each end. 

NYC 5756 is boiler equipped. The GP7s look good at each end and this train looks to be a keeper.  

This four car set of ACF coaches from Walthers is another strong possibility. A Proto 1000 RS2 at each end looks good and worked well in this configuration.

 Does this say commuter train? I think so.

Substituting the MRC Platinum NYC F7s for the RS2s is another possibility. These F7s are boiler equipped. 

I rummaged around under the layout and pulled out my son's PRR Spectrum passenger cars. Using three coaches and one combine I added his PRR E8A and a non powered Athearn BB F7A to the  other end. 

Not to be outdone by the PRR train the train foreman has assigned this NYC E7A to this commuter train.

Here's a video of it starting up and moving out.

I think the commuter trains will become a part of the ritual for the N.Y.C.T.L. operations. Having them with an engine at each end makes them simple to operate. The NYC GP7s, RS2s and F7As need the work so we'll give it to them! I know the NYC did not have F7As with boilers or in the gray lightning stripe scheme. They didn't have FL9s either but don't tell the commuters who rode into Manhattan behind them on the Metro North RR.

 Thanks for reading!

Recent Paint Projects

Greetings All,

A lot to report this week from the N.Y.C.T.L. Shops. Prior to the P.C.C.M. 40 series reaching the N.Y.C.T.L. for the concluding installments I took took advantage of some decent painting weather to get a few projects into the completed column.

Lets take a look;

Here we have two Life-Like 100 ton hopper cars that I bought recently from ebay to complete the PC hopper project that I initiated earlier this year after purchasing a set of PC H43D hopper decals from Highball Graphics. https://highballgraphics.com/F-159.  This was supposed to be a quick easy inexpensive project. Yeah, right...

One hopper is disassembled to show how easy these cars are to work with. Two screws hold the frame to the car. Remove them and the frame will come right off as will the weights if the prior owner did not glue them. 

Here's the project cars sitting on some H43 cars at North Side Yard. The cars are all the same. A Walthers factory painted car is on the bottom left and a Life-Like car that I painted earlier is on the lower right. Walthers, who bought Life-Like, released the cars under the Proto 1000 name. The P-1000 cars come with metal wheels and body mounted knuckle couplers. The Life-Like cars do not. But they are easy to convert and perfect for this project.

Below are the hoppers, a trio of Bachmann 50' boxcars that I also stripped for repainting and a Life-Like oil company that has been washed and is ready for paint.

Here are the newly painted and lettered H43D coal hoppers. Three cars of the four car project are prototypical in appearance to their 1:1 counterparts. The fourth car is a 70 ton rib sided car that I painted and lettered earlier after becoming frustrated in the search for reasonably priced cars for this project. All cars have had body mounted Kadees and Intermountain metal wheel sets installed. The PC Hopper Project is now completed!  

Continuing with the old Life-Like brand is this oil company kit that I found at an antiques store recently for $4.00. It was new with the wrapper still on it and I couldn't pass it up. The colors were quite bright and the shack and roof were translucent. See the photo above. The kit is now painted and it's ready for assembly.

Here it is partially assembled with an Atlas telephone pole installed. 

I've ballasted the base to match the ballast being used in Terminal Yard and around the layout.

Here's the finished kit at the under construction Terminal Yard engine facility. That's 1/87th scale Wet Willie toweling himself off after climbing down from the ladder. I plan to paint a figure named Earl who'll be assigned to the oil pump hump house. If you grew up in certain areas like South Brooklyn then you know that oil is pronounced earl! 

The H43D hoppers are shoved into Terminal Yard and coupled up to some PRR H-21 coal hoppers recently released from the shop.

The quartet of H-21's are courtesy of 1:1 Engineer Ed who gave me this very generous gift. All four were recently assembled with Kadee #5s and Intermountain metal wheel sets installed. Built in 1912 some of these cars lasted thru the Penn Central era thanks two two rebuilds. Thanks Double EE!!

What about the Bachmann 50' boxcars you ask? Turns out there were a total of four Bachmann PC 160502 50'ers in the bottom of my 50' car box. I had a total of five of these cars and #5 is used in the virtual ops and should be in or around West Mill on Ralph's K.P.D. layout. Of the five, three I've had for more than twenty years and at one time painted their roofs silver to match another PC car I purchased. Four and five were more recent purchases and were in their complete factory colors. All five had been converted to body mounted couplers and metal wheels. 

So car #5 remains as PC 160502 for use in the virtual ops as seen below in P.C.C.M. 39K on Ralph's K.P.D. Layout 

For car #4 I took a page from ATJOE1972's tutorial for removing the car numbers with Walthers Solvaset. Using this procedure the car remains in factory Penn Central paint with only new reporting marks and numbers added. Here's a link to ATJOE1972's video describing the process; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXo6dijSJZc  

Car #4 was the first car out of the shop and is now numbered 360158 which is a correct PC number of this type of car. 1/87th scale ATJOE and PC Ralph check it out as it sits in Terminal Yard.

Next out of the shop was car #3 painted in a full Empire Belt RR scheme. The car is numbered into the PC's 360200 - 360499 open sequence. These cars copy NYC Lot 931B that the NYC numbered 48000 - 48159 and the PC renumbered 360050 - 360197.

Car #2 is E.B.R.R. 360458 which shows it's NYC roots and has been numbered into the PC for the merger. 

Car #1 is another E.B.R.R. car showing it's NYC roots. This car is still numbered in the NYC system and sports smaller reporting marks and numbers. This car is for cereal and flour loading only. 

Here's the four boxcars and the six hoppers at Terminal Yard awaiting assignment.

All in all it was a very productive two weeks for the N.Y.C.T.L. shops. Four boxcars and two H43D hopper cars now have a new lease on life and four good looking PRR H-21 hoppers are added to the fleet.

Thanks for reading!!!

P.C.C.M. 40-O The wrap up!

Greetings All,

This is it! The long awaited final installment of the three layout P.C.C.M. 40 series. This series originated on 1:1 Sir Neal's A.P.R.R. layout with PC Train WV-2 leaving Weehawken heading up the River Line to West Mill on Ralph's K.P.D. layout. Ralph then sent WV-2 towards it's ultimate destination of Selkirk where 24 freight cars from those two layouts were made into PC Train VN-4 that ran the cars to the N.Y.C.T.L. For model railroad fans some binge reading might prove enjoyable.

We open up P.C.C.M. 40-O with 1/87th scale PC Ralph at the throttle of this pair of NYC GP9s pulling the Bedford Local thru Empire City's west side reverse curve as part of their turn to head back to Terminal Yard.

Rolling back thru Bedford The Local meets the Coal Job coming out of Terminal Yard.

With the Coal Job in the clear the Bedford Local heads towards Terminal Yard to complete their trip.

1/87th scale AT JOE rides the platform as the Bedford Local rolls thru Terminal Yard on track 6 passing PC 229036 and L.F.&N.W. #160. The L.F.&N.W. is the home road of 1:1 scale John Bruce who's 1/87th scale alter ego mans Bedford Tower. With the per diem I'm paying him I think he just bought another railroad or at least a vacation home! I'll be sending it back his way on the next P.C.C.M. that originates on the N.Y.C.T.L.  

The Coal Job now has their work window and gets busy pulling  the loaded coal hoppers from Hudson Coal. Note the position of the caboose.

The three RS2s are hard at work pulling the loaded cars out of Hudson Coal. The engines are P-1000 models. I painted the PC units and weathered the NH unit. 

The last of the loaded hoppers head out of Hudson Coal

The loads are spotted on track 3 as the Coal Job crew prepares to uncouple from the caboose and work with the empties. There's that caboose again...

The empty hoppers have been shoved into Hudson and spotted as the coal cycle gets ready to resume once again. 

The Coal Job power has coupled up to the loaded hoppers on track 3 and is building air pressure. Where's the caboose? On the rear of the train! These guys are good.

Back at Terminal Yard 1/87th scale Senior Engineer Sir Neal and conductor John prepare to depart caboose lite for North Side Yard.  

The E.B.R.R. meets the Coal Job holding on track 3 in Bedford NY

Once at North Side Yard the guys tie down their train on track 1 and wait for the L.I.R.R. transfer run to arrive.

They won't have long to wait as the L.I.R.R. is coming thru Bedford right behind them with the Coal Job still held on track 3. Those Coal Job guys might be good but it's often a fact of life that coal trains take the siding and wait for other trains to pass them.

Coal hoppers and ALCOs make for a good rail fan photo op!

The L.I.R.R. rounds the Bedford Curve and heads up to the Cornelius Vanderbilt Memorial Bridge.

The L.I.R.R. transfer arrives at North Side Yard via Hohman Ave.

The L.I.R.R. has dropped their train on track 2 and is now running out of NS Yard via the east side entrance. 

The L.I.R.R Alcos couple up to the Morton Salt hopper and the rest of the cars being interchanged today. They'll shove the train back to get their caboose on track 2 before heading out.

The L.I.R.R. leaving town passing Walsh's Steel Wool Products.

The L.I.R.R. train crosses the High Line and heads for the Cornelius Vanderbilt Memorial Bridge. The block from Rock Ridge includes Tropicana / USLX 13068 loaded with Tropicana products for the A&P distribution center in Garden City NY, AP 60382 and 60394 heading for Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood NY loaded with baked good from Freihofer's NJ bakery and the Morton Salt covered hopper /ACFX 62004 loaded with salt and headed for the Ronzoni plant in Long Island City. 

The block from West Mill includes PC 104478 headed for Lombo Concrete in Huntington NY loaded with cement flux from Gern Industries, P&LE 35892 headed to Sunshine Biscuits in Long Island City with packaging materials from Canton Box and the two gondolas, KP&W 2140 and MCRR 350623, headed for Mid Island Steel in Medford NY loaded with steel slabs from Kings Port Steel.

Ahead of the L.I.R.R. train is another set of Alcos. The Coal Job is climbing the grade behind Hudson Coal towards Terminal Yard and encounters a hunter with a deer slung over his shoulder making his way thru the wooded area.

Black Pennsylvania, Penn Central, P&LE, Empire Belt and Kings Port & Western coal hoppers as far as the eyes can see! So much better than the colorful circus of coal hoppers that made up my roster only a year ago.

The loaded coal hoppers roll thru the weigh in motion scale on track 9 after arriving at Terminal Yard.

With the Coal Job out of the way and clear track ahead the L.I.R.R. freight train heads for points east and that does it for the P.C.C.M. 40 series.

Put it in the books!

Thanks for reading!