P.C.C.M. #40J

Greetings All, 

It's installment #10 of the P.C.C.M. 40 series that originated on 1:1 scale Sir Neal's A.P.R.R. and headed up the River Line to 1:1 scale PC Ralph's K.P.D. before reaching Selkirk NY. The ball and the trains are now firmly in the N.Y.C.T.L.'s court as VN-4, a 24 car freight train that left Selkirk behind five cab units, arrived yesterday at the advertised time of 1900 hours in Terminal Yard. Let's pick up the action on track 9 as the TY switch crew has received it's switch list from the yard office. 

The TY switch crew couples up to VN-4's caboose and prepares to pull it and the block of cars from Rock Ridge from the train. The fresh out of the shop GP20 and an S12 are the yard power today.

A cut of six empty hoppers from R.M.O. Electric on the A.P.R.R. is shoved into track 7 for the Coal Job to take to Hudson Coal tomorrow. The Morton Salt covered hopper from Morton Salt is headed for Ronzoni in Long Island City NY 

More cars from Rock Ridge Yard include two A.P.R.R. 50' RBL's loaded at Freihoefer's Bakery with baked goods for Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood NY and ACFX 56670 decorated in the American Bicentennial paint scheme. The covered hopper was loaded with flour at the huge Cargill plant on the A.P.R.R. and is consigned to the Wonder Bread/Hostess Plant in Bedford NY.

The last of the block from Rock Ridge is this 50' Tropicana RBL loaded with Tropicana products at the Tropicana Plant in Jersey City NJ that is serviced by the A.P.R.R. The car is consigned to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse in Empire City.

With the block from Rock Ridge now off the train the TY switcher can access the caboose servicing track where they spot VN-4's caboose.

The TY crew is now busy pulling the block from West Mill. The GP20 - S12 combo has some NYC fans scratching their heads. For those of us in the know we remember this S12 was converted to a track cleaner. Exactly!  I'm cleaning the rails while enjoying the ops. How cool is that?

The West Mill block is pulled thru track 9 to the yard lead where the crew will sort and block the cars for the outbound locals and interchanges. A shout out to 1:1 PC Ralph for his work on PC 104478. This is one of my best looking PC cars and was a gift from Ralph back in the early days of the P.C.C.M.s when we had only a few cars to move around. Note that Ralph removed the roof walk, a safety initiative begun by the ICC in 1966, to clearly put this car into the PC era. 

PC 104478, P&LE #35892, KP&W 2140 and M.C.R.R. #350623 will be heading to North Side Yard for interchange with the LIRR.

The two Trailers on Flat Cars left Williams Yard and later West Mill empty on train WV-2. At Selkirk they were loaded with trailers for Terminal Yard.

The T.O.F.C. cars are being shoved towards the T.O.F.C. track and overhead crane.

The T.O.F.C. cars are spotted and the crew heads back to resume their switching.

The yard work continues with B&M 109 and 110 loaded with glass bottles from Corning Glass and headed to Heileman's Brewery are shoved into track 5 for the Bedford Local. NYC 80779 and the PC depressed center hopper will be heading to industries in Empire City.

The TY crew is done! Cars from VN-4 consigned to local industries or interchange have been blocked and are ready for departure. We'll take that up in the upcoming installments.

Thanks for reading!

P.C.C.M. #40I / Arrival of Train VN-4

Greetings All,

The final train movements of the three layout P.C.C.M. 40 series have reached the N.Y.C.T.L. The 40 series originated on Neal's A.P.R.R. layout. Train WV-2 left Weehawken on Neal's layout and traveled up the River Line on Ralph's K.P.D. layout stopping at West Mill. Cars from WV-2 for the K.P.D. were pulled from the train and cars from the K.P.D. for Terminal Yard were cut in. WV-2 left on West Mill on time for it's ultimate destination Selkirk Yard.

We'll pick up the action with Train VN-4 (Selkirk to Terminal Yard) arriving on N.Y.C.T.L. rails.

To:         West Mill / Rock Ridge
From:    Terminal Yard
Subject: Arrival of Train VN-4 at Terminal Yard

Train VN-4 departed Selkirk at 1000 hrs this date and arrived on time at 1900 hrs. 

Terminal Yard out...

VN-4 rolls over the High Line towards Bedford NY behind an FA2-FB1-FB1-F7A-F7A lash up.

 VN-4 rolls slowly over the Cornelius Vanderbilt Memorial Bridge and into the Bedford curve.

VN-4 crosses to track #3 while a commuter train is at Bedford Station.

VN-4 holds on track 3 while commuter train behind PC FP7 4348 heads to Terminal Yard on track 2

The commuter train arrives at Terminal Yard

Much to the appreciation of the waiting passengers. Looks like the N.Y.C.T.L. train crews are going out for a night on the town via public transportation.

VN-4 is now clear to head into Terminal Yard and is seen climbing the grade behind Hudson Coal

Part of the block from West Mill can be seen behind the Hudson Coal freight platform.  

 VN-4 stretching around T&R Gravel

 Part of the block of cars from Rock Ridge

 The remainder of the Rock Ridge block crossing over from track 3

It's 1900 hours (7:00 PM) and VN-4 arrives on time at Terminal Yard.

VN-4 makes it's way down track 9 and over the weigh in motion scale passing today's TY switcher. NYC GP20 #6107 is fresh out of the shop after getting new axle gears for the front two axles.

Freight cars from VN-4 coming thru the yard lead. 

A short video showing VN-4 in it's entirety arriving at Terminal Yard

Thanks for reading and watching!

Terminal Yard Upgrades Part 2

Greetings All,

Work has continued at Terminal Yard this past week and the end result has me quite pleased. I spent the better part of several hours ballasting the yard after adding the passenger platform to the right. Passenger trains are a big part of my modeling and this would be a good place to have my trains travel to from Empire City Station. A word on ballasting: Tedious.

A passenger platform with some greenery has been added and the next round of ballasting has begun.

Gotta have a platform for my 1/87th scale rail passengers. Of course now I have to paint more figures. These projects never stop!

That yard tower may or may not end up in the final plans. It'll probably be moved several time to see where exactly it will fit in without interfering with the scenic views and switch throws. 

And the ballasting is done! I even added a little greenery at the left to break up the gravel look and give the yard some color. I also used a black paint wash between the rails to simulate the leaking oil and grease.

Since we have a passenger platform let's check it out with a passenger train. 

NYC GP20 #6107 leads two more GP20s and a freight train over the weigh in motion scale on track 9. This has promise and I'll upgrade the 'scale' with something that looks more like a scale. 

 PC E8A #4072 and E7A #4210 run around their train on track 2.

A five unit lash up of NYC, PC, PRR and EBRR locomotives head to the not yet operational engine terminal on track #8

With an actual ops with Double E and a virtual ops, P.C.C.M.#40, coming up it was time to clear the layout. E.E. and I ran some a double stack trains during our last ops session. The blue CSX Intermodal husky stack car with the Con-Quest and Genstar containers is dear to my heart. I actually worked for two of the three companies.

With some trains now in the picture Terminal Yard is looking more like a railroad yard. 

Here's Terminal Yard a few months ago in P.C.C.M. 35.

Here's Terminal Yard awaiting the arrival of incoming freight trains for P.C.C.M. 40.

Thanks for reading!!!

Terminal Yard Upgrades! Part 1

Greetings All,

With the work at Bedford Park and BP Yard winding down it's time for me to turn my attention to Terminal Yard. When I started building the N.Y.C.T.L. Terminal Yard was built to be a staging or fiddle yard. It's in a separate room that houses the vast majority of my trains and was basically designed as a place for me to take trains out of their boxes and put them on the layout and take trains off the layout and put them away. I never envisioned adding scenery here and was quite happy with the painted plywood and train boxes.

Fast forward several years and Terminal Yard has become a focal point of N.Y.C.T.L. operations. Operations that did not exist at the time it was built. This all changed when I met my friend Ralph or PC Ralph as we call him and we started the virtual ops AKA the Penn Central Car Movements. Then 1:1 Engineer Ed started coming over for actual ops and Terminal Yard was again part of the action that I never really envisioned for it. Add 1:1 Sir Neal's A.P.R.R. into the virtual ops mix and it was really time for me to get Terminal Yard more virtual ops and actual ops worthy.  

Recently Ralph showcased some of his facade industries on his K.P.D. blog and another train buddy, John Bruce of the L.F.N.W., showcased his facade layout on his blog. Using both of their work as inspiration I entered into the 'facade world'. 

Awhile back my buddy Engineer Ed gave me an Evans Designs software package that allows me to make my own backdrop or facade buildings using my computer and printer. So I put it to use again. 

This is the Terminal Yard entrance at it's recent best in P.C.C.M. 39. Evans Designs printed building are in the upper right corner. Some cardboard and hard board are blocking the train boxes behind the trains. The yard was tough to find decent photo ops when participating in the virtual ops.

Enter the new Facades. I've designed and printed out some more building flats and actually attached them to the walls. The large retaining wall at the bottom left is shelf liner paper over some scrap wood. The smoke stacks are cardboard tubes with construction paper used for the black and the orange.

Some shrubbery and grass have been added at the base of the wall. As the glue dries I'm pondering my next move.  

The Power & Light Company is back in place. Not bad so far!

Some ballast has been added to the rear of the tracks and some billboards have been added to the buildings

The Terminal Yard Switchers roll into TY and already this scene looks so much better to me.

 The tunnel to the rest of the layout doesn't look so bad right now.

I used black 20" x 30" foam core board that I bought at a local dollar store for the facades. I cut them at 15'' in height and the remaining 5'' are glued to the front of that piece to make the wall that is covered with the shelf liner paper. Five feet of facades are now in place. They attach to the shelf work with Velcro for easy removal and access to my passenger trains. This is only a start but I like the way it's going so far

Still a lot of scenic work to be done but the overall effect is so much better.

Another 30'' of Terminal Yard has scenery and track ballast added. 

 The view from the room's entrance.

So far I've only glued one turnout closed and I really like the way the area is looking. Some more scenic details like signs and some weathering to the buildings and retaining wall are in the plans. I'll follow up with that in part 2.

I want to thank all of my train pals for their inspiration, support, positive comments and camaraderie. There is no way I would have ever undertaken this without that. I am so looking forward to posting some shots of trains entering and leaving the Yard now! Thanks for all your support. 

Thanks for reading!

PS I unglued the turnout!