Lightning Stripes Return

Greetings Blog Followers,

First today is Thursday November 22, 2012 and I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Now back to the trains... Despite the recent trend moving the layout, rolling stock and locomotives toward the late 1960s, which is indicative in prior posts by the paint schemes and appearance of the Penn Central, I want everyone to know that the New York Central Lightning Stripes are alive and well. Right now they are out in force and the somber all black locomotives are being given a much needed rest. Here's a small sample of some current locomotives on the layout.

 New York Central FT-A & FT-B part of an A-B-B-A Lash Up

NYC FT A-B-B-A Lash Up leaving Empire City Station

New York Central Alco FA-FB-FA Lash Up

NYC FA-FB-FAs on the point of a freight train on  upper level

New York Central F7A & F7A combine power on an upper level freight train

A Rail Fan favorite, an Alco PA-PB-PA consist makes it way to Terminal Yard

NYC PA-PB-PAs run light heading to Terminal Yard 

New York Central Alco RS2s also running light towards Terminal Yard

NYC RS2s running light (engines only)

  

Newly Painted Locomotives

Greetings Blog Followers,

Here are the newly painted locomotives fresh from the shop...
 

Penn Central #1908 joins PC# 1802 on the roster. Both units are Bachmann train set locomotives with non powered pancake motors. They are draw bar equipped for close coupling. 

Side shot of PC 1908 and 1802. Note draw bar connecting locomotives. 

PRR # 1602 in a simplified scheme from the late 60's. This scheme was used on FP7s during that era. This locomotive is a Bachmann train set locomotive that was painted in a bright yellow U.P. livery.

PRR #1602 attached to an Athearn F7A in the famous PRR Tuscan paint scheme.

NYC E8A #4020 is a Proto 2000 model and formerly painted in F.E.C. red and yellow.

NYC #4020

NYC #4020 with PRR #1602 

NYC # 4020

A four unit lash up, NYC Lightning Striped F7s with PC F7s, lead a feight train on the upper level. The first six cars are also recent repaints. Three Baldwin diesels are also in the scene with two S-12s on the lower level and an S-12 in the background on the upper level.

Newly Painted 50' Boxcars

Greetings Blog Followers,
Just finished stripping and repainting five 50' Boxcars. The cars were originally two Milwaukee Road, one Olympia Beer (reefer)and two Union Pacific. All cars received a new coat of jade green paint and three are lettered for the New York Central and two for the Penn Central using Microscale Decals.

Before photo of a train set quality Bachmann 50' Boxcar

Before photo of a Bachmann 50' Boxcar with a bit more detail

Newly Painted PC  50' Mechanical Refrigerator Car# 167538, a Model Power car, formerly Olympia Beer 

Newly Painted PC 50' Boxcar #167999, a Bachmann car, formerly Milwaukee Road

Newly Painted NYC 50' Boxcar #159895, a Bachmann car, formerly Milwaukee Road

Newly Painted NYC 50' Boxcar# 162440, a Bachmann Car, formerly Union Pacific

Newly Painted NYC 50' Insulated Boxcar # 36830, a Bachmann Car, formerly Union Pacific

Florida East Coast E9A #1031

Greetings Blog Followers,
Attended a recent train show and brought home Proto 2000 Florida East Coast E9A #1031. Unit has been tested on layout and runs excellent. Engine will be heading to the paint shop to become either a New York Central E8A in the cigar band scheme or a Penn Central E8A in the PC black scheme. A little history on the FEC E9A #1031. The unit was built for FEC and is pictured below in it's delivery paint scheme. The FEC ceased passenger operations in 1963 but was required by the state to run a single daily local passenger train between Miami and Jacksonville that was usually just two cars. The 1031 handled that assignment until about 1967. During this time frame it wore a very simple blue livery. Here are some photos of the latest addition to the motive pool.

FEC E9A #1031

A look at the improved backdrop.

Prestage Tool & Gear

Greetings Blog Followers, I recently added a refurbished building to my New York Central Train Layout.. I believe the kit is from Pola but I do not remember it's original title on the box. I built the kit about 20 years ago and modified it a bit with the hoist location and raised foundation. I was looking for a small industrial building to tuck in next to the overpass and this building fit the scene perfectly. I was looking through my parts box and found some pallets with gears that I had also made a long time ago from a broken alarm clock. A check of my printed backdrop buildings and signs courtesy of Tomkat-13 on the Model railroader forums and I found the Prestage Tool & Gears signs. Seemed like a perfect match so the signs were applied and the building now occupies this site.

Prestage Tool & Gear at it's new location and open for business 

Track side view

Two workers talk it over as they wait for the local train to arrive.

Both agree the new site is a vast improvement over their old location.  

A customer gets ready to load up his truck with a recent purchase

  

Highway Overpass Opens

Greeting Blog Followers, The motorists entering and leaving Empire City are celebrating a new overpass and approach that will drastically reduce their commuting time. Construction is finally complete and both cars and trucks can  into and out of the busy industrial and downtown areas of Empire City.     

The new overpass and approach curves behind Prestage Tool & Gear. This is a recently refurbished older model building and will be the subject of my next blog entry.

Traffic is heavy over the double main line and siding

Truck traffic is heavy making heading into Empire City

A view under the overpass

Looking down the line

The fauna and flora of the area

The Bomb Squad Truck enters Empire City

Getting to street level

A steady of flow of traffic entering and leaving the city.

A busy industrial setting.

Quick Inexpensive Coal Loads

Greetings Blog Followers,

I have been going through some of my rolling stock and noticed (again) that I have quite a few older hopper cars without coal loads. I even have a recently purchased P-1000 Penn Central Hopper car in need of a load. I brought the car to my local hobby shop and attempted to purchase a cast coal load to no avail. Seems the company that made the loads for this particular car, an older Life Like tooling was either bought out or went out of business. The hopper cars are mostly $1.00 and $2.00 cars that I bought a long time ago,  came across in the used section of an old hobby shop or were given to me. This being the case I did not want to spend $8.00 for a pair of cast loads for a $1.00 car.

As luck would have it I was recently wandering through a Michael's Craft Store when I came upon a product called Decorative Sand. It is black in color, comes in a decent sized plastic bag and cost under $5.00. Right away I thought voila new coal loads. So I bit the bullet and purchased a bag. Here are the results from the first batch.

The now loaded P-1000 PC Hopper Car

 Side view of PC Car

Southern 4327 with new load. This is an old IHC car that I bought for $2.00 many moons ago.

BN 542309 is another old $2.00 IHC car. Both this car and the Southern had been converted to body mounted knuckle couplers a long time ago but with their light weight and no decent looking coal load they languished in storage for years. Now they can ride the rails and are in line for replacement metal wheels.

Top view of homemade load in a 40' Bachmann Quad Hopper.

 Comparison shot of molded plastic loads on bottom and new homemade load on top

For a quick and easy installation I cut corrugated cardboard to fit tightly against the sides and the slopes. I then dull coated the cars which also sealed the cardboard. I then added white glue, sprinkled in the decorative sand and shaped to fit the car. I drizzled a little alcohol and then more white glue diluted with water and some dish washing soap. 

While the sand adds some much needed weight modelers can hide additional weight if needed under the cardboard. Weight was added to the two IHC cars above in this manner.  

So far seventeen cars have received these coal loads. I still have about a half a bag of the sand left so the cost was definitely well worth it for me. I glad to have taken cars that never saw the light of day and given them a spot in the roster so they are now in revenue service. Yes they will be forever loaded but I have many more cars that have cast loads that can run loaded or empty. But remember these seventeen cars were in dire need of the extra weight of the load and the added wight under the load to be reliable runners.