Greetings All,
Empire Belt Railroad Definitions and Operations Part 1
As the freelance Empire Belt RR evolves and continues to serve the citizens and industries of the fictitious Empire City I've been working on getting the operations more prototypical where possible. To accomplish this I've been working on defining the railroad's function and how it interacts with the national rail system.
Empire Belt Railroad: A switching district railroad that serves industries in Empire City, New York. The EBRR started as a subsidiary of the New York Central RR and on February 01,1968 became a subsidiary of the Penn Central RR. On April 1st, 1976 Conrail would either take ownership or spin it off. We'll see when we get there!
Switching District Definition: A freight railroad that serves a specific area performing local switching services.
North Side Yard: The Empire Belt's freight yard in Empire City. Receives interchange traffic from nearby Terminal Yard in East Bedford NY which is the principal freight yard of the New York Central, Penn Central and after April 1st, 1976 Conrail.
North Side Yard: Also serves as an important interchange point for the Long Island RR. Freight traffic for the LIRR arrives at Terminal Yard and is later transferred to North Side Yard. Union agreements allow for the LIRR to deliver and pick up freight traffic here.
Motive Power
NYC and early PC era: Alco FA1-FB-1-FB-1-FA1s rebuilt to m.u. (multiple unit) with EMD products. Two EMD GP18s. Two EMD GP30s. Power can be mixed and matched to meet horsepower needs.
Fan favorites, the Alco A-B-B-A set is one of the last pure sets of Alco FAs and FBs in the Northeast and draws rail fans from near and far.
PC era: Two GE U23Cs and three EMD SDP40s are the newest power for the EBRR joining the Alcos, GP18s and GP30s. The U23Cs and SDP40s are sometimes combined when heavy traffic warrants but most of the time remain as two separate power sets.
The three SDP40s with a New Haven heritage unit are a bit of a stretch when one considers the prototype SDP40s were very few in number and the NH did not roster a single one. However, they make an attractive and muscular three unit lash up so they'll enjoy being part of the EBRR for many years to come.
Empire Belt RR Freight Cars
The EBRR rosters a good number of freight cars including boxcars, flatcars, bulkhead flatcars, covered hoppers and refrigerator cars to name a few that meet the needs of its local customers.
A pre 1968 EBRR boxcar with NYC herald and an ACI label applied post merger. This car is for flour & cereal loading only as noted by the writing in the yellow box to the left of the door.
EBRR 40' boxcars at Neal's Lumber & Hardware.
One of the newer Plate C EBRR boxcars gets spotted at Reliable Machine Company.
Per Diem: Latin for per day. One way railcars earn revenue when when off their home rails.
Incentive Per Diem Freight Cars: A program created in the 1970s by the US Government to relieve a nationwide boxcar shortage caused by the US Government. Freight car rates at the time did not cover the costs for RRs to rebuild their aging fleets of boxcars in need of repair which kept them out of service. This created a nationwide boxcar shortage.
The increased Incentive Per Diem Program gave tax benefits to short lines and investors to purchase new boxcars and make money from these cars with an increased per diem rate as they were loaded and traveled on the rails. This lasted for about ten years and was ultimately a failure as traffic slumps caused most of these cars to remain empty and be returned to their owners. Imagine a mile long short line RR needing to store five miles of empty boxcars that they were still paying for. Pretty much sums up the EBRR!!!
Empire Belt IPD Freight Cars: Like some short lines of this time period the EBRR invested in a few IPD boxcars that served the auto industry. EBRR 86' boxcar in Ford Pool Service brings in some revenue and alleviates chronic car shortages of the parent road.
EBRR 60' boxcar #608279 is one of two specially painted boxcars in the Ford Pool Service. Here it is making its way up the River Line on the Kings Port Division.
Empire Belt Coal Hoppers: The EBRR has a good number of coal hoppers on its roster that are mostly in pool service out of nearby Hudson Coal in East Bedford which is served by parent railroad NYC or PC.
The EBRR hoppers often haul coal from Hudson Coal to North Side Yard for interchange with the LIRR and movement to Long Island coal dealers and the Empire Power Authority coal fired power plant in East Bedford alleviating chronic car shortages of the parent road.
A Quick Look at Empire Belt Operations
Reimagined and Enhanced
Now that the EBRR has firmed up its identity its time to improve its railroad operations. The bulk of the work is updating and preparing more plausible waybills for not only the EBRR fleet but the entire freight car fleet except for the coal hoppers.
A big undertaking and not that exciting but it will pay big dividends shortly with improved freight car utilization and the handling of empty cars. Here is a sample of the newer car cards and waybills now in use with the now ever present sharpie fine point marker.
Sample Empty Car Utilization
Newly repainted, re-lettered and renumbered APRR 40' boxcar #4160 was made empty at an Empire City industry. The 4160 is in assigned service to the EBRR as noted by the "when empty return to EBRR at North Side Yard" in the box adjacent to the door. Upon arriving in North Side Yard the car was used to fulfill a local empty car request from Drywell Ink.
Once loaded at Drywell Ink the 4160 will be forwarded to the Lightning Press in the Terminal Warehouse & Cold Storage Complex in East Bedford, NY.
In a future blog post we'll catch up to the AP 4160 at Lightning Press and take a look at several methods being used to keep the freight tonnage moving across the layout and to and from points beyond the basement.
Final Thoughts and Comments
As my interest in model railroad operations and prototype operations increases some of what I thought was good when I started I now know is wrong. Correcting this and preparing a waybill for each freight car in the fleet with the exception of the coal hoppers is now underway. I'll report back on that in the near future.
Some of the links to websites being used in this undertaking
Thanks for reading!!!!
See you soon!!!