Penn Central Car Movements #93 Part 2 / Empire Belt RR Action

 Greetings All,

Welcome back to Penn Central Car Movements #93!!!

Our three layout virtual op with my NYCTL interchanging freight traffic with 1:1 Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division continues today.

We open today's action at the Empire Belt RRs North Side Yard in Empire City NY with the arrival of LIRR Train MA-3. The EBRR trainmen are out to greet LIRR engineer Jimmy Alco and inspect the inbound train. 

The LIRR interchanges freight cars at North Side Yard. 

Jimmy Alco brings the train out of North Side Yard. The LIRR train, now designated as Train MA-4, heads back to Fresh Pond Yard.

Conductor John has the waybills in order and the switch lists ready.

After getting the yard organized Senior Engineer Sir Neal heads for EBRR U23C #6719 which will power the Empire City Local along with U23C #6720. 

Conductor John boards the E.C.L. caboose.

The Empire City Local is shoved out of North Side Yard.

The E.C.L.'s first stop is to pull three empty AP covered hoppers from Empire City Cargill. Below PC Ralph protects the crossing.

The next move is to pull one APRR and one EBRR gondola each loaded with pipe for Tropicana from Gervais Pipe & Fitting.

Sir Neal has shoved the Empire City Local to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse to pull three empties for movement to their next PCCM loadings. PC Ralph protects the crossing and enjoys the aromas from Pizza Land. Time permitting maybe he'll grab a slice or two?

With the pulls complete the E.C.L. is now spotting inbound cars for Gervais Pipe & Fitting that include empty PC gondola #288673 for its next PCCM load. 

PC Ralph is back to protect the crossing at Neal's Lumber & Hardware as the E.C.L. pulls a pair of empty Empire Belt 40' boxcars for movement to their next PCCM loadings.

Empty EBRR 50' boxcar #358160 is placed at Neal's Lumber & Hardware for its next PCCM load.

Sir Neal heads west with the E.C.L. to continue working the Empire City industries.

The Empire City Local starts working the west side industries.

NH boxcar #36116 and PC boxcar #104478 are pulled from City Pallet loaded with pallets for Port Owen Brick and Woodstock Hills All Natural Soda respectively.

The E.C.L. has shoved back to Dry Well Inks to pull empty LV boxcar #66392 for return to the LV and P&E boxcar # 3638 loaded with ink for the Catskill Mountain Press.

Now over at Walsh Steel Wool Products an NYC Early Bird boxcar loaded with steel wool scrap for Boom's Ready Mix gets pulled. 

Sir Neal gets the Empire City Local back together and prepares to head back to North Side Yard.

The E.C.L. heads to North Side Yard.

A few hours later the yard is again organized with Train EB-2 ready to depart and deliver many PCCM cars to Terminal Yard as PC Ralph prepares to board lead locomotive 6294.

Conductor John gets ready to hand the waybills and car cards to the EB-2 conductor. 😉

We'll cut it here for today with PC Ralph bringing Train EB-2 to Terminal Yard.

We'll pick it up tomorrow in Terminal Yard as we turn the op back over to the Penn Central for running our last local train before building and dispatching our outbound trains.

Be sure to catch all the action on Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division!

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See you tomorrow!!!

Penn Central Car Movements #93 Part 1/ The Virtual Op Begins

 Greetings All,

Welcome to Penn Central Car Movements #93!!!

P.C.C.M. #93 will be a three layout virtual op with my NYCTL interchanging freight traffic with 1:1 Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division.

Astute Penn Central fans will recognize that fifty two years ago this weekend was to be the last weekend of solvency for the RR. 

Gone are Saunders, Perlman, and Bevan after a special board of directors meeting on June 8th. Penn Central president Paul A. Gorman is now president and chairman of the PC. His reign will be a short one.

On June 21, 1970, a Sunday, the financially strapped Penn Central would file for bankruptcy protection becoming the largest corporate bankruptcy of the time. 

And the trains kept rolling...

We open our PCCM action with the Bedford Park Yard Job pulling an LV boxcar and APRR boxcar #58260 from All City Storage. The APRR boxcar is loaded with furniture for 3 Amigos Warehouse in Rock Ridge NJ. The LV car is empty and will be forwarded back to the LV at Tonawanda NY.

The BPY job works the Ford Plant pulling empty auto parts boxcars. The EBRR 503827 will be heading to IDEAL Auto Parts in Rock Ridge NJ and the EBRR 608279 will be heading to ACME Auto Parts in Mayfield NY. 

Empty 60' APRR boxcars will be returning to IDEAL Auto Parts for their next PCCM loads. The APRR car to the left is the newest car on the APRR roster and making its PCCM debut as the APRR looks to continue capitalizing on this profitable traffic.

The Bedford Park Yard Job collects its caboose and readies to depart the Bedford Park Yard limits.

The BPY heads for Bedford Tower and Terminal Yard as train BP-12.

Train BP-12 arrives in Terminal Yard.

The Terminal Yard crew has the freight cars going back to Bedford Park ready to go and after an air test the BPY crew departs as Train BP-41.

Train BP-41 heads to Bedford Park.

We'll leave the BP-41 as it arrives in the cozy confines of Bedford Park with non PCCM cars.

We turn our attention to Terminal Yard as Train VN-4 from Selkirk arrives with APRR GP38 #358 leading an F7B and F7A.

Train VN-4 has stopped on track #9. An added treat for railfans is the appearance of APRR caboose #58 that brought up the markers on the VN-4. Kar Knocker has cleared the BP-12 train from Bedford Park sitting on track #8 as the yard job couples on.

The VN-4 power heads into the engine terminal as we see shop workers loading empty 55 gallon drums into GM&O boxcar #21129 for return to Gulf Oil in West Mill NY.

A couple of hours later we catch Alco Joe heading towards a pair of Alcos powering Train BT-27, the Bedford Turn. 

Train BT-27 departs Terminal Yard.

The Bedford Turn begins its work at the Hostess Plant pulling three Hi Cube boxcars loaded with baked goods for ShopRite in Rock Ridge, NJ and an empty Hostess covered hopper returning to the large Cargill Plant also in Rock Ridge NJ.

Being pulled from University Millwork are non PCCM empty All Door boxcars and PC boxcar #360158 loaded with console TV cabinets (remember them?) for Zenith TV in Bloomberg NY.

After spotting non PCCM cars at Schaefer and Neubaum's the locomotives await clearance to access the main to make their runaround move.

The Terminal Yard Wreck Train passes the BT-27 power and Bedford Station.

The BT-27 is back together and holds for clearance to enter the mainline.

Alco Joe brings the BT-27 to Terminal Yard.

The RS-2s have cut off from the BT-27 and head into the engine terminal.

We'll cut it her for today with Big Mike ready to pull the caboose  and Kar Knocker out to inspect the train.

We'll pick it up tomorrow in Empire City with LIRR train MA-3 arriving at North Side Yard to interchange our PCCM freight cars.

Be sure to catch all the action on Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and PC Ralph's Kings Port Division!

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See yo tomorrow!!!

Toledo Peoria & Western RR Boxcar Project Completed

 Greetings All,

Part two of the Toledo, Peoria & Western RR boxcar project has been completed. Part one of the project was reported in this October 9th, 2021 blogpost. 

Here are the original TP&W double door 50' RBLs from the original paint project. Also part of this project were a pair of brown NYC bay window cabooses for our unit coal trains.

An anomaly in the original paint project had seven double door RBLs and one single door boxcar sent to the Patti O Paint Shop. Four red double door RBLs and the one orange boxcar pictured below went to Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and three red double door RBLs stayed on my New York Central Layout. 

Since October 2021 Detective Inspector Sir Neal had been on the lookout for two more cars so each of us would have five cars for virtual operations interchange. True to form after much searching and crawling around under train show tables he found them. Here are the two newest cars just out of the Patti O Paint Shop.

TP&W 71026 is now ready for virtual ops interchange with the APRR as "the Duke" checks out the paint job.

The Atlas model came with metal wheelsets and has received Kadee #5 couplers. 

TP&W RBL #50572 is fresh out of the Patti O Paint Shop and is also approved by John Wayne who was starring as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

The 50572 is another Atlas model that came with metal wheelsets and has received Kadee #5 couplers.

Both the NYCTL and APRR now have these four TP&W RBLs on their roster. The cars were part of the nation wide Per Diem Car program in the early 1970s. They seldom traveled empty with lessors finding them loads. The challenge will be to find industries that can ship and receive four cars like University Millwork.

TP&W 70126 is spotted at Berk Enterprises and is also in need of a virtual operations routing.

Terminal Warehouse & Cold Storage can handle all five cars at one time without off spotting any. 

Import / export traffic to and from Pier 16 is another possible shipper /consignee as it can handle all five cars at one time. 

In PCCM 92 the original three TP&W boxcars were seen being shoved empty into the new PC Richard appliance dealer that took over the NYC Water Street Freight House. The three will be loaded with appliances for Three Amigos Warehouse in Rock Ridge NJ which is served by Sir Neal's APRR.  

The two newly painted cars joined the previously painted TP&W cars at the PC Richard appliance dealer and make their PCCM debuts next weekend in PCCM 93.

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!

Freight Car Spotlight #4-2022 / Bev-Bel Southern Pacific 50' Boxcar #653003

 Greetings All,

Freight Car Spotlight #4-2022

Today's Freight Car Spotlight will focus on Southern Pacific RR 50' boxcar #653003. 

Model Information

The 50' single door boxcar is an Athearn Blue Box model painted by the Bev-Bel Corp. I purchased the car as seen below at an area train show in January 2022.   

A close up of the SP 653003 shows the well done paint and lettering advertising the car as equipped with a Car-Pac Loader and Fixed Side Filler and a AAR code XL meaning it is car loader equipped for securing loads. 

The underside of the car is typical of Athearn model builds. The clean metal weight was a pleasant surprise.

After disassembly the car parts were painted as noted below. 

The shell has received a shot of dullcote. The frame has received additional weight and Kadee Couplers.

The car was rebuilt using standard tools.

Proto 2000 metal wheelsets replaced the original wheels. The trucks were drilled out slightly where they attach to the bolster. Some Athearn car bolsters are too wide for the trucks. If you have an Athearn car where the truck does not rock easily from side to side or leans in one direction this can be easy fix. 

The car is checked against the Kadee Height Gauge and is now ready for service.

The job is not complete until the paperwork is done! A car card has been prepared and the SP 653003 will get its first load fulfilling an Empty Car Request from Terminal Warehouse for a shipment of mixed foods going to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse in Empire City NY.

Model to Prototype Comparison

Searching various internet data bases like Fallen Flags, RR Picture Archives and others I was unable to locate an SP car in the 653003 number range. A couple of SP cars did come close. 

I posted an inquiry about the car on the Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine forums and received the following photos.

SP boxcar 653462 from Canadian Freight Car Gallery.

SP boxcar 653187 from RR Picture Archives.

SP boxcar 651679 from Railcar Photos.

I was a bit surprised that I could not find a prototypical match for this car painted by Bev-Bel. Going forward I'll follow the advice of MRH forum poster Dave B as the car looks like an SP car to me and not look back.

Thanks for reading!!!

See you soon!!!