Penn Central GP30 2232 Joins the fleet

Greetings Blog Followers,

Prior to the surprise purchase of the EMD SD-35 in the prior entry I was busy working on two locomotives for my Penn Central Fleet. The first one out of the shop is EMD GP30 #2232. The shell was stripped using 91% alcohol painted with rattle can black and lettered with Microscale decals.

A little background on the PC GP30s. The locomotive was introduced in 1961 and featured 2250 hp. Unmistakable with its bulging dynamic brake blister "shoulders" the GP30 was the first nationally accepted EMD second generation model. The NYC purchased 10 and the PRR 52. With or without dynamic brakes the big shoulders looked the same. On the PC the NYC 10 w/o dynamic brakes were assigned to the flat terrain around Collinwood. The PRR units with dynamic brakes were scattered around Morrisville, Enola and Conway. The GP30s were used in both symbol and secondary freight service.

GP30 freshly painted and awaiting lettering

2232 has been released from the paint shop. It features the red P as featured in the 1970 photo in 

Penn Central Power color insert on page 126

The 2232 shown here coupled up to a PC GP40

PC GP40 3007, GP30 2232 and GP30 2218  haul a coal train towards Terminal Yard.

EMD SD35 6003 Added to the Locomotive Fleet

Greetings Blog Followers,

The Purchasing Department for the New York Central Train Layout recently went on a spending spree at the 4th of July sale at my local hobby shop. One of the items purchased was a used yellow box Atlas EMD SD35 with a weathered PRR scheme numbered 6003. A perfect match for my yellow box Atlas Penn Central EMD SD35 #6039.

On the Penn Central, the 6000 series meant six axle diesels and in turn meant the Pennsylvania RR. The 6000 series contains no New Haven or New York Central diesels as neither road fielded six axle freight diesels. The PRR purchased 40 of these 2,500 horse power SD35s from EMD from June 1964 to January 1966. Although liable to pop up anywhere in the Penn Central system the SD35s were most frequently found in the territories around the Alleghenies.

The 6003 and 6039 served the PRR, the PC and Conrail. For a few photos check these links

 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoPicture.aspx?id=113983

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1937068

SD35 #6003 was found on a shelf of used items sitting in an Athearn Box. The P&LE Flexi Van train in the rear was part of the same purchase order.

SD35s 6003 and 6039 are paired up and ready to enter revenue service. 

A weathered 6003 and cleaner 6039 in a newer PC paint scheme rumble

 through the North Side of Empire City

A close up of the 6003. Bought used she features a brass horn, extra weight, Kadee couplers and speedometer cable on other side. The 6003 ran excellent right out of the box with  just a drop of oil added. 

The 6039 has been in the stable for several years. With the addition of the 6003 both can expect to be in heavy freight service 

 

The SD35s move through the North Side Yard with a unit grain train.

Here is the same train on the South Side

 

Coil Coach Comeback

Greetings Blog Followers,

There are eight million stories in the Empire City and here is one of them.... Many years ago management at the New York Central Train Layout wanted to get involved in the lucrative steel traffic into several Empire City industries. The railroad purchased a few clam shell coil coaches but difficulties with the clam shell mechanism side lined these cars pretty quickly. The RR then purchased a few cushion coil cars but the costs of these cars was beyond the RR budget and deemed not profitable so only a few were added. Fast forward a few years and now the Empire City Chamber of Commerce is courting Ford Motor Company to open a metal stamping plant just outside the city line. Looking for a cost effective way for my railroad to get back into steel hauling my shop forces attempted to repair the clam shell cars to no avail.

The B&LE and P&LE were the big buyers of the clam shell coil coaches. Tired of dealing with the clam shell operating issues the B&LE and P&LE began selling off the cars. New York State regional carrier Kings Port & Western began purchasing the cars in bulk as they had developed a very successful rebuilding program to improve on the clam shell design. Management at the KP&W has turned these cars into big money makers servicing one of their big on line customers. As a CB&Q coil coach was making it's way from Kings Port Steel through my rail system it was noted by our consignee how well the clam shell was working. A call to CB&Q revealed that it was a KP&W upgraded car. Impressed with the innovative mechanical upgrades the NYCTL started looking for clam shell cars again hoping to be able to get them upgraded by the KP&W.

 For those not familiar with the Kings Port & Western you can view some of the local rail fan videos of the KP&W in action including their reworked coil coaches here
....  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPUGI6ngpY  

                                            CB&Q Coil Coach showing it's rebuilt clam shell              

Two recently purchased coil coaches (Bachmann) have been upgraded with body mounted knuckle couplers by the NYCTL shop. The KP&W has agreed to handle the clam shell improvements. 

An SD40 leads the coil coaches to North Side Yard for routing to Kings Port NY and  KP&W shops 

Meanwhile back at Empire City we have placed our two coil coaches back in service w/o their clam shells as noted below

A former B&LE Coil Coach that has received a new coat of paint.  

NYCTL train shop forces cut off the hood and it was sold for scrap.

A B&LE Coil Coach that has had it's clam shell removed. 

This car arrived on the NYCTL with a only 1/2 of the clam shell.

That too has been sold for scrap 

A loaded coil coach sans clam shell cover 

This coil coach has received reporting marks, numbers and data. 

It has been taken from the scrap line and is now in revenue service.  

PC 8091 sit with newly painted PC Reefer 229007

For the record watching the videos posted by RalphPCvids was the inspiration to get my own coil coaches out of the boxes and add a few more. He has turned these cars into some excellent looking models that compliment his outstanding layout. If you are a RR fan and especially a PC fan I urge you to check out his videos. Thanks Ralph for allowing me to use and link to your wonderful layout.

PCA 229007 Joins The Fleet

Greetings Blog Followers,

Lots of projects on the work bench at this time. Local Hobby Shop, Trainmaster Models in Buford Georgia had their annual 4th of July Sale. Got up there early on the 4th and came home with a nice sized bag of goodies. Noticed a P-2000 wheel set was damaged in the package so I returned on the 5th to exchange the wheel sets. Of course I came home with a another bag of "stuff". Anyway it was a great sale and they even had complimentary hot dogs and sides on the 4th. So lots of projects on the workbench should translate to lots of Blog entries going forward.

Now back to our topic.... Penn Central 229007. Looking to expand my running fleet and using items I already owned I pulled a 50' Mechanical Reefer from the bottom of one of my storage containers. The car is a Model Power product that I purchased in the early 1990's. The car was lettered for the Burlington Northern but the car languished in the storage container not seeing any run time year after year. Reason....The lettering was applied to a green plastic shell. The lettering was nice but the car always looked out of place and very toy like as I added and upgraded my fleet. So I decided to give the car a second life.

If you are a rivet counter stop here.

Prior to painting the car I attempted to remove the lettering with 91% alcohol. After several days it was apparent that the lettering was impervious to the alcohol. So I just painted right over the car using a rattle can jade green that I purchased from American Slings in Florida.

The newly painted 50' Reefer with decals ready to go.

The completed reefer car. The car lettering was cobbled together from Microscale decals 87-1096 Penn Central Freight cars with Penn Central style lettering, 87-1098 Penn Central Esoterica or non-standard boxcar lettering and their freight car data decals. The "P", from 87-1098 is the faded red version. The data under the PC appears darker. This is because I used a sharpie marker on the back of the decal sheet so I could read the lettering. I had read that this would not affect the decal. Wrong. It did. Maybe I used too much.   

PCA 229007 has been released from the paint shop and awaits pick up with PC Coil Coach 8091. Topic for next Blog post. From the internet...  The letters "PCA" and "PCB" were used on Penn Central-painted equipment basically for the purpose of tracking down certain leased railroad cars (mainly box cars painted with these reporting marks) that were insured, and required to be insured by the leasing companies (incase PC lost these certain cars because of their financial troubles). Later, these special reporting marks were not used, and the reporting marks "PC" were used as before for these railroad cars.

  

Shelf City Turn Finally Arrives

Greetings Blog Followers,

This past week I was able to get back into the train room and take care of some of the railroad delays from our previous operations session. This first train out of Terminal Yard was a block of empties for Hudson Coal. The empties have been spotted and the Hudson Coal brass is now off my back for the time being.

The second train to get out of Terminal Yard was the Shelf City Turn (still needs a better name) that we can follow along in the below pictures. My 1/87th scale sales personnel are going to be working overtime to keep these customers on line. A four day delay is going to be a bit tough to explain!

Power for the S.C. Turn are two Fairbanks Morse H16-44s. These are Spectrum models that I custom painted a few years ago. I used the same switch list that I prepared for the prior ops session. I must admit it was kind of fun pulling and shoving the cars into their rightful places. 

The freight cars of the S.C. Turn. Four of the five industries on this side of Shelf City will be switched today. Lots of work and the cars are not all blocked correctly adding to the switching activity

The SCL covered hopper is destined for Wonder / Hostess, the two PC boxcars go to Berk Industries (tall building in middle), the flat car with wood load and the two NYC 40' double door boxcars in front of it are going to Universal Milling and Lumber (white building at left), the NYC 50' boxcar is destined for Wonder / Hostess and the three reefer cars are going to Heileman Brewery a little further along the line. Not shown in picture is a 2 bay covered hopper destined for Wonder / Hostess. 

University Lumber & Millwork has it's cars spotted and is back in business

Berk Industries is getting two loads today 

Wonder /Hostess has been switched and the cars correctly spotted. The S.C. Turn crew will have a few choice words for the Terminal Yard Yardmaster who did not block the train as efficiently as he could have.   

3 empty reefer cars have been spotted at Heileman Brewery and the beer drinking world has rejoiced. The weekend beer scare should be over. 

A wreck train was spotted on a siding last week prior to our first ops session. The thinking here was that if any major incidents occurred we could dispatch the train quickly to clean up the mess. I thought this would add a bit of prototype action and realistically impose some delays on RR operations. This train had to be moved to Terminal Yard before the Shelf City Turn could arrive and begin it's work. 

The remainder of the wreck train with the big hook. Thought this would also be a bit more attractive than just the big hand from the sky. 

The wreck train heads back to Terminal Yard to await it's next call to duty.

Operations Session #1 is in the Books!

Greetings Blog Followers,

The New York Central Train Layout hosted it's first Train Operations Session yesterday, June 27, 2014 at 1500 hrs. The operators were myself and engineer Ed W. Ed is an O scale modeler with former employment on the Penn Central and Frisco under his belt. The session lasted a bit over two hours and started with a basic get to know the layout and block system for Engineer Ed.

The prep work paid off well even if we did not get to run all the trains that were scheduled. Basically with no real first hand knowledge of how much time it would take for certain trains to run, be switched etc. I felt it better having more trains on the schedule than too few.

All in all it was a very pleasurable experience and both Engineer Ed and I enjoyed the afternoon. The time flew by and we had to rejoin the ladies. If not for that we would probably still be down there running the trains through the night!  I look forward to doing this again.

Staging Yard / Terminal Yard just before the start of the op session. The New York Central Passenger Train in the foreground was annulled. In it's place we ran two commuter trains from that track into and out of Empire City Station. The commuter operations went very smoothly with Engineer Ed at the controls. 

2 NYC F7As on pull into Empire City Station with six express and mail cars on the head 

end trailed by four coaches. 

The back end of the NYC train sits on track 2 while a bulk mail train waits to depart on track 3 The train on track 2 had it's head end cars swapped during the session and basically ran continuous on the outer main while the mail train ran back and forth to Staging / Terminal Yard with the commuter trains. 

Cars are spotted at their respective industries. A switch list was printed out for our local train. This train however ran late and the cars did not get switched out. 

A Grain Train Extra that I left on the inner loop to start the session.

West Side industries wait for the railroad to switch out their cars. These rail customers were a bit disappointed as the RR was late.

The Furniture Factory with two loads ready to go 

North Side Yard with two trains ready to go and waiting for crews. 

These 2 trains did make it all the way to staging. 

Caterpillar with two loaded cars ready to ship

A mock up Grocery Warehouse with 4 cars waiting to get pulled

Cargill with a loaded train ready to go. The train of empty hoppers arrived on time and the loads were pulled and empties spotted. The inbound empties from Staging / Terminal Yard was train #CG-1 The outbound loads were designated Train TY-21 and they made it back to Terminal Yard.  

3 Reefer Cars sit on the Heileman Brewery track 

Hudson Coal waits for a RR crew to arrive and take out the loads. The crew goes on duty at Hudson Coal and pulls the loads from there to the scale at North Side Yard. The train then heads to Staging / Terminal Yard. The crew then takes available empties to Hudson Coal and spots them. Depending on traffic the switchers can be reassigned or if Hudson Coal is loading quickly Coal Extra may be needed. For the first operating session the loads made it as far as North Side Yard. I hear the phone ringing  as the Hudson Coal brass want their empties ASAP! Better get down to the basement this morning!  

Trains spotted at various industries on the aptly named Shelf City. Really needs a better name.

Upcoming Operating Session Part 2

Greetings Blog Followers,

The big event, the first operating session on the New York Central Train Layout, is one week away. A busy work week has kept me out of the train room but will correct that this weekend. I've been going over in my head a list of trains and the sequence that they will run in order to have a good amount of railroading without fouling up the mainlines or the yards. A few other ideas have also cropped up some which may or may not be implemented. Here is a short list of trains I hope to be able to run for the operating session and some ideas that I may incorporate as well.

Keep it Simple!!! Plan is to use diesels with four wheel trucks only. More nimble and less likely to derail.

Prototype will be Penn Central. If / when derail occurs it will be prototypical. Will put Work Train with crane on siding that will no be used for this session.

Freight Trains:

CG-1   9 covered hoppers (empties) from Staging Yard to North Side behind 2 diesels and with a caboose.
            Engines will run around train and put caboose on front to "protect the shove from" the yard to  
            Cargill.

TY-21   Loaded Hoppers from Cargill back to staging also known as Terminal Yard which will be our                       connection to the rest of the world.

Lackawanna Transfer: 6 to 8 car freight train from Staging to North Side Yard. Engines return to staging                                         caboose light per union agreements.

 HC-3            Hudson Coal train, 12 empties from staging to Hudson Coal. 12 loaded  hoppers from                                 Hudson Coal to North Side Yard for scaling. Train will depart for Terminal Yard as an                                 "Extra" when time permits.  

GF-5             General Freight. Staging to North Side Yard with cars for West Side Industries.

TY-52           North Side Yard to Terminal Yard. Outbound cars going to Terminal Yard using GF-5,s                              engines and caboose.

North Side Local:      Switches North Side Yard and local industries.

Shelf City Turn:         Staging Yard / Terminal Yard to industrial area on shelf portion of layout. Switches out                                 Cars as needed. Returns to Terminal Yard.

ME 10            Mail and Express Train from Staging Yard to Empire City Station on lower level. Pick up and                       drop cars at Railway Express Agency and Post Office. Returns to Staging / Terminal Yard

NY 4              Meat Products Train. A string of 40' Reefers. From Staging to North Side Yard.

That's it for now. I'll update as the week progresses.