City Pallet Opens in Empire City

 Greetings All,

This week I took a break from the model railroad operations and focused on moving a layout industry and adding one. It all started innocently enough with 1:1 PC Ralph introducing two new industries for his Kings Port Division layout.

The Port Owen Power Plant 

and Port Owen Brick Company 
would be served by the Penn Central via the existing West Mill Float Yard.

Over on the Atlantic Pacific R.R. 1:1 Sir Neal has a Supermarket Distribution Center on the drawing board that might handle up to four cars at a time.
I wanted the NYCTL to have a complimentary industry to serve the new industries on the K.P.D. and A.P.R.R. and I thought a pallet company would fit the bill. But where to put it?  

So I took another look at Neubaum's Coffee & Tea Importers to the left of Moore & Company. Neubaum's is named after Steve Neubaum, a fellow modeler from the original TrainLife crew. 

Unfortunately this business gets very little rail car traffic in the virtual ops and this looked to be the best location for a pallet company. 

Over in Bedford this white warehouse with the Ocean Breeze Soap sign has been vacant for over five years. The siding is shared with Heileman Brewery and the warehouse can handle one 50' boxcar.

Or two 40' boxcars. 

After an imaginary five year legal battle to obscure the layout owners indecision the new owners of the building are offering to lease all or part of it. Neubaum's Coffee & Tea Importers have shown interest in moving to the newly refurbished building.

Back at Neubaum's Empire City location the pallet company is being mocked up to possibly move in to this location.

The pallet company however was hesitant to move into Empire City until they had a reliable source for lumber. So I reached out to 1:1 PC Ralph and he responded with Half Moon Wholesale Lumber that will be served by the PC out of West Mill Yard.

Half Moon Wholesale Lumber on the K.P.D. has also secured contracts to provide finished lumber to my Neal's Lumber & Hardware, University Millwork and off layout Long Island lumber yards as well as Mike's Lumber on Sir Neal's A.P.R.R.

With a buyer for the Empire City building Neubaum's Coffee & Tea Importers relocated to Bedford NY and took possession of the top floor of the warehouse. I've added two more loading dock doors and may another rail served business move in down the road. 

The new City Pallet Company has moved into the old Neubaum's site and are getting ready to start making their pallets.

A chain link fence and some stacks of Atlas lumber (Thanks Sir Neal!) simulate that a rail shipment from Half Moon Wholesale Lumber has arrived. 

A truck load of dimensional lumber from nearby Neal's Lumber & Hardware gets unloaded as City Pallet gets ready to open for business.

I have HO scale pallets on order and was hoping they would have arrived by today but they are somewhere within the USPS shipping chain at the moment.

This is the Virtual Ops Catalyst at it's best. Inspiring layout projects on all three layouts. What started as a simple "Other side of the River" scene on PC Ralph's K.P.D. showing a power plant has led to industry projects for all three virtual op layouts. 

Thanks for reading!!!!

See ya soon!!!