P.C.C.M. 66 / NYCTL Part 3 / The Inbound Cycle Begins.

Greetings All,

Welcome back to P.C.C.M. 66!!!

Today begins our inbound portions as freight cars from 

Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR and 

PC Ralph's Kings Port Division

arrive at Terminal Yard

Train VN-4 from Selkirk heads thru Empire City towards Terminal Yard with freight cars from Rock Ridge and West Mill Yards.

VN-4 passing Bedford Tower

VN-4 arrives at Terminal Yard shortly after 7:00 PM.

The power has been cut off and heads into the engine terminal

The GE-EMD-Alco lash up is spotted at the fuel rack.

1/87th scale Alco Joe & conductor Murray are again called for the second trick Yard Job. 1/87th scale Kar Knocker has released the train and the yardmaster provides VN-4s car destinations. 

1/87th scale Alco Joe and Murray head over to the caboose track to pick up a pair of cabooses.

With the cabooses set the Yard Job starts its work on the VN-4. 

A four car block from West Mill for Empire City industries are shoved into track #5.

The yard job works a cut of cars out of Rock Ridge Yard.

B&M #105 from West Mill is cut in behind four empty PC PS-2 covered hoppers from the APRR engine terminal as the sun comes up over Terminal Yard.

Three 86' boxcars and one 50' boxcar from IDEAL Auto Parts in Rock Ridge NJ are shoved into track#6. 

Track #6 gets all the VN-4 cars for Bedford and Bedford Park. 

Three 50' boxcars from Rock Ridge Yard get shoved into track #5 for delivery to the Empire Belt's North Side Yard in Empire City. Note that starting today in order to increase efficiency and decrease dwell time the Penn Central has stopped blocking cars at Terminal Yard for the Empire City industries ending a years long unspoken agreement between the two railroads.  

With the two outbound trains built 1/87th scale Alco Joe and conductor Murray work a trio of TOFC cars from the Kings Port & Western's Williams Yard.

The yard job has shoved over to the Terminal Yard TOFC track and is pulling out several Flexi Van cars.
The TOFC cars from Williams Yard are spotted. The flexi van cars will be added to TV train 15A leaving later tonight.

We'll cut it here for today with our favorite 1/87th scale engine hostler Wet Willie setting up the power consists for our two local outbound trains.

We'll pick it up tomorrow at Bedford Park Yard as the crew starts getting the inbound cars delivered to their respective consignees.

Be sure to follow the inbound action on 

Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR,  

PC Ralph's Kings Port Division and
Brian's Ralston Creek RR!

Thanks for reading & watching!!!

See ya tomorrow!!!

Layout Odds and Ends

Greetings All,

A bunch of recent layout projects to report today.

The first is "Ray's Midnight Auto Sales" that advertises Hot Cars. This is named for my uncle Ray who had a new car about every two years and was the first in the family to have A/C in a car and a home. What can you say he's a cool guy!

The "Midnight Auto" moniker was well known to many a Brooklynite in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Uncle Ray had a neighbor who was a reputed mobster and car dealer. His business model was to sell you a car and about a year or so later have it stolen so he could sell you another car. The stolen car would be either chopped up for parts or have it's numbers changed, be painted and then sold to an unsuspecting buyer. Midnight Auto Sales and Parts...

Next up this displaced three story building has replaced the fire scene building that formerly occupied this spot. The EBRR signal maintainer can now watch the kids play football instead of breathing in all the fake smoke.

The signal maintainer now can also conveniently park his truck.  

The old fire scene has been relocated to the eastern lower level edge of the layout. The Matchbox emergency trucks still have an emergency to respond to and when my grandchildren get older they can drive them around like their parents did on my old layout.

With the recent addition of the Gulf tank car to our virtual ops I cobbled together an unloading area for three tank cars at the end of Terminal Yard track #7.

Some sprues, straws and a fenced in pump house give the impression that three tank cars can be unloaded here.

Ralph's Kings Port Gulf Oil Facility will also be shipping 55 gallon drums of lube oil to the Terminal Yard engine shop. I may unload them here. 

And truck it the short distance to the shop.

Unloading outside the shop also makes sense. We'll see. Ralph and I both made and painted 55 gallon drums for these Gulf shipments.

The next project was to add this spill wall around the fuel tanks.

The wall is constructed with card stock from a cereal box. It was sprayed with rattle can grey and attached to small dowels which were inserted into holes drilled into the wood base. 

A yellow walkway over the wall provides access to the tanks.

The inside and outside of the area have been ballasted.

With everything dry I removed the other tanks and vents from the area for this photo. It looks nice but I like the top photo better.

Next on my project list was to replace these garden rocks called pea gravel that I added when I first built this section.

I used some of the larger rocks that were sifted out of a bag of Paver Base that I use for ballast.

Much better! Now I need to remove the rest of the larger rocks. 

I've started scraping out the larger rocks and this portal will be going bye bye as well. 

A new tunnel portal and support made from foam core and hobby sticks. The structure is both rattle can and brush painted.

GP35s blast out of the new portal with a TV train in tow while a pair of SD35s slowly roll to a stop on track 3 as the TV train has priority clearance to enter Terminal Yard first. 
PC /PRR Tidbit: The 119 GP35s bought by the PRR were their last four axle road engines. Their 40 SD35s were the first six axle engines bought for road service by the PRR.

Here's another layout project that recently popped up. The siding at Drywell Inks was extended after I realized that the new bumping post did not allow a 40' boxcar to be spotted at the door. 

 That's better!

A whimsical addition are these porta potties being delivered to RA Tower on the back of a matchbox truck. I was previously informed that the tower needed an outhouse so here we go. BTW patents were issued for this type of portable toilet in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lastly a pump house and air tank being installed in Terminal Yard to supply yard air to the yard tracks. Yard air is basically used to  keep the brake systems of cars charged when they are not connected to a locomotive. 

Not all yards have this but a class 1 yard like Terminal Yard probably would. I'll need to find scrounge up some thin wire or something similar to lay on the ground at the beginning of the yard tracks to simulate the air hoses. 

Thanks for reading!!!

See ya Friday when P.C.C.M. 66 resumes!!

P.C.C.M. 66 / NYCTL Part 2

Greetings All,

Welcome back to Penn Central Car Movements #66!!!

A three layout virtual op with 

PC Ralph's Kings Port Division,

 Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR 
and my NYCTL.

Hop aboard as we close out the NYCTL's outbound portion today.

We open up at Terminal Yard with 1/87th scale Alco Joe called for today's Yard Job with his conductor Murray.

The Yard Job gets right to work on the freight cars brought in yesterday on EBRR Train EB-2.

The YJ shoves back on track #7 to pick up the empty Gulf tank car for return to the Kings Port NY Gulf Facility.

1/87th scale Alco Joe is building the Rock Ridge Block of our outbound train. Three gondolas of pipe for Shapeless Steel, three EBRR 57' reefers four 40' boxcars for C&P Restaurant Supply. The empty GN 40' boxcar is heading back to GN tracks via Elhart and Brian's Ralston Creek RR.

The Yard Job is now working the West Mill block. The BAR & P&LE boxcars are headed to Reynolds Beverage, the Gulf tank car to Gulf and the empty coil coaches to Kings Port Steel. Empty PC Hi Cube boxcar 272742 is consigned to Bruce Electric Equipment for it's next PCCM load.

1/87th scale Alco Joe spots the PC Hi Cube outside of Bruce Electric Equipment for the Pier 16 Yard switcher to deliver.

Back at Terminal Yard the Yard Job continues building our outbound train shoving EL reefer 5034 and BAR reefer 7574 into the Rock Ridge Yard block for delivery to C&P Rest Supply.

Covered hoppers for Morton Salt and the large Cargill facility at Rock Ridge have been shoved into the Rock Ridge block. The Yard Job is now shuffling cars for the West Mill  block that include two gondolas of Pipe for the Hudson Valley Ag CoOp and a P&E boxcar loaded with 55 gallon drums of ink for the Catskill Mountain Press.

1/87th scale Alco Joe has the West Mill block pretty much set with KP&W PS2 hopper loaded with silica sand for Corning Glass and boxcars PC 104478 and NYC 80775 cut into the block. The yardmaster is out to let Alco Joe know there are two cars for West Mill and three for Rock Ridge over at the Pier 16 yard.

The Pier 16 switcher is now working Bruce Electric Equipment. 

The GM&O boxcar is loaded with electrical equipment for Peerless Appliance and the PC depressed flatcar has a transformer for a Kings Port Division consignee.

PC Hi Cube 272742 is spotted at B.E.E. for it's next PCCM load.

The GM&O boxcar and PC flat are spotted for pick up by the Terminal Yard Crew.

The Pier 16 switcher has departed and 1/87th scale Alco Joe and the Yard Job couple up to the two loaded freight cars.

The Yard Job shoves back to the Pier 16 Grain Silos holding track to pull a trio of empty PC covered hoppers for the Cargill Facility in Rock Ridge NJ

As 1/87th scale Alco Joe brings the five freight cars towards Terminal Yard for blocking into our outbound train we catch PC Ralph bringing his six engine consist thru the wye so the Alcos will lead on the return trip back to North Side Yard. Way to go Ralph!

The Yard Job shoves the GM&O boxcar into the West Mill block and our ever growing outbound train. 

The transformer load is cut into the West Mill Block.

Last but not least the three PC covered hoppers are spotted here as the Rock Ridge yard block is doubled over to track #4. 
With the yard tracks now clear 1/87th scale PC Ralph brings the EBRR Alcos out of the wye and gets a thumbs up from Alco Joe.

1/87th scale PC Ralph, his conductor/brakeman and the six engine consist are back at an empty North Side Yard and greeted by none other than senior engineer Sir Neal. 1/87th scale Sir Neal has just returned from Rock Ridge Yard and assures everyone the line from Weehawken is now open.  

Which is a good thing as the power for our outbound train, Train NV-3 to Selkirk, is coming out of the engine terminal.

NV-3 heads out of Terminal Yard for Selkirk.

NV-3 jostles the cameraman as it passes thru Bedford!

Next stop Selkirk!!!

That wraps up the NYCTL's outbound portion of PCCM 66. We'll be back at it next weekend as the layouts receive their inbound cars and get to work delivering them to their respective destinations.

Be sure to follow the action on 

PC Ralph's Kings Port Division and 

Sir Neal's Atlantic Pacific RR

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See ya soon!!