Hello all,
The continuing "virtual ops" between the New York Central Train Layout and the Kings Port Division have reached the 12th series and its time for a Unit Grain Train now that the barley harvest is ready. See the action begin on the N.C.YT.L. blog at this location: http://newyorkcentrallayout.blogspot.com/
The N.Y.C.T.L.'s most recent post features a gathering of various covered hoppers that are assembled into PC train XVS-1 headed toward Selkirk. We use Selkirk as the main route to exchange cars in our virtual ops scheme. Some of the covered hoppers were later cut from the train at Selkirk and then sent to Williams Yard on my Kings Port Division as PC Train XVK-2, which will be featured here.
The train is headed by a U33C/ GP38-2 combination of power as it crosses Ulster Ave in Kings Port.
A variety of covered hoppers follow...
All grain cars!
They continue to make drivers wait at the grade crossing.
Until the caboose finally rolls by. Its Penn Central N8 #23274 that I fashioned from an old Tyco caboose by cutting and rotating the cupola and modifying the windows before painting and decaling for the PC.
The next day, Extra #8663 was dispatched from Williams Yard, headed by a pair of RSD-12s, with some of the covered hoppers from XVK-2, all headed to Empire Grain in West Mill.
Arriving at West Mill...
And approaching Empire Grain
The transfer caboose is cut and the locos do a back and forth move to shove the covered hoppers into Empire Grain's spur.
That's the latest virtual ops!
Thanks for taking a look!
Hello all!
I haven't been blogging much recently but that doesn't mean things haven't been busy on the Kings Port Division. Still focusing on operations, I'll present the newest "facade" industry that will become part of the virtual ops happening between the Kings Port Division and New York Central Train Layout.
It all started when the Kings Port Division took possession of this UP 60 ft. auto parts car courtesy of the N.Y.C.T.L.
The gift came with the suggestion it might make a good Kings Port & Western car. Having custom made a number of my own KP&W freight cars, I greatly appreciated the offer! The car sat in Williams Yard in its UP livery for a little while until I attended the Twin City Model Railroad Museum Hobby Show and Sale at the State Fairgrounds this Spring. Among my other purchases, I found an identical UP auto parts car! Suddenly I saw the possibility of including the gift car as part of our virtual ops. I decided to create two identical KP&W cars and send one back to the N.Y.C.T.L. for operations and photographic purposes.
Attempts to use 91% alcohol to remove the UP logos and use the existing orange car body as an easy way to add the car to the KP&W roster proved fruitless. The logos faded but did not completely disappear. I wasn't interested in creating a patch job so I used brake fluid to remove all the paint and start from scratch. It only took a couple of hours for the brake fluid to do the job.
I then spay painted the cars with KP&W orange (Liquitex Professional Spray Paint Cadmium Orange).
Once the paint was dry, I over-sprayed the cars with a gloss medium to prepare them for decals. Using a combination of commercially available decals for car data and my own custom made KP&W decals (made on Micro-Mark decal paper) the finished cars look like this.
The new cars needed an industry to serve so I "imagineered" ACME Auto Parts. This is another "off-layout' car routing destination that is represented by a hidden staging track. It is supposedly located on the Mayfield Branch along with Peerless Appliance and Cavendish Foods which were featured in previous posts. Just as I did with the other two Mayfield industries, I wanted to create a visual facade backdrop so I could photograph the cars at their set-out locations for the ops scheme. Here is ACME Auto Parts.
ACME's walls are made from inexpensive plastic lawn sign material that has nice vertically scribed lines that suggest corrugated construction. The big bold ACME sign is made from a package of cheap alphabet refrigerator magnets.
ACME Auto Parts is now ready to ship to the FORD Plant on the N.Y.C.T.L. and to receive shipments of machine parts. A new car card box for car routing to ACME has been added to the other Mayfield industries on the layout fascia.
Yet another sign of the economic health of the Kings Port Division during the Penn Central era!
Thanks for taking a look!
