Virtual Ops

I've referred to the joint operations scheme between my "Kings Port Division" and John's "The New York Central Train Layout" as "virtual ops".    The quick summary, as noted in earlier posts, is that we build trains on our layout that include cars we both have in common and photograph them in action on both layouts to create the impression the cars have moved from one location to the other.  In addition to being a lot of fun, the scheme has also motivated improvements on both layouts to enhance operations and visual interest.   

It all started when we looked at photos of each others layouts and realized we owned some of the same freight cars.    We increased the number after some car maintenance work and improvements (mostly me changing out horn hook couplers for Kaydees on some older cars that I wasn't using much), and also by sending each other duplicates of other cars we owned.    We've built up a  joint roster of over two dozen cars.

I assembled all of the cars we currently have in common at West Mill's Float Yard for a photo.

 As you can see, there is a variety of rolling stock that includes hoppers, gondolas (looking at the pic I noticed I neglected to include one additional gon), boxcars, coil cars, and covered hoppers.  This allows us several options for creating car movements between the two layouts.

Here's an example:

A new company on my layout, Woodstock Hills Natural Soda, needs labeled bottles for their product.   They aren't rail served so they use the Kings Port Team Track for shipping.  An order is made to Berk Enterprises on the N.Y.C.T.L.    An empty boxcar (in this case an EL 40 ft. boxcar) is sent to that business on John's layout via his Terminal Yard.  Here is the car card with the pertinent information.

John creates a local train at his Terminal Yard that includes the EL boxcar we have in common and sends it out to Berk Enterprises.  Below is a photo John took of the EL car after it was spotted at the industry on his layout.

After a few days, John has a local pick up the car and return it to Terminal Yard where it is then placed in a train heading for my Williams Yard.  (Seen behind the BAR car)

After a day or so I'll create a train seen heading into Williams Yard that includes a scene with the EL car and any others he has sent my way.   Then I'll photograph a local train delivering the car to the appropriate industry...in this case the Kings Port Team Track where a truck rented by Woodstock Hills Natural Soda will offload the labeled bottles.  

The EL car is shown below as part of a local coming out of Williams Yard on my layout.

Below is the car card for the car movement coming my way.

  And here is the car being set out at the team track.

We tend to send between five to ten cars most times, taking turns as the freight agent selecting the industries requiring car movements.   These scenarios take a bit of thought and planning but are an enjoyable hobby exercise!  

In addition to photographing the car movments we have also posted some videos on YouTube.  Here is my latest:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcuk-_c_WDM

 Thanks for taking a look!

Legal music in my video!

Hello again.  Two blog  posts in one night as I type while listening to the first NY Mets game of the season.  They're down 2-0 to the World Series Champion Royals.  Its "deja vu all over again", as Yogi used to say.  Nevertheless it is SO GOOD to have baseball back!  Spring is definitely here!  This is also evidenced by the blooming of a hardy crocus in our Minnesota back yard.

I talked about my experience with copyrighted audio in YouTube videos in my previous post.  I mentioned finding a site that offers free music that avoids that issue.  Taking advantage of this service, I uploaded another video with musical background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx-1O9FBwvc

I'll probably do this again and perhaps alternate between train sounds and music while describing train movements on the Kings Port Division.   If you watched the video above you got a glimpse at the "Virtual Ops" I've been running with John.   This idea was inspired by an arrangement Allen McClelland's V&O had with other members of the so called "Lichen Belt" model railroads.  I heard that they would set up identical trains and dispatch them in and out of staging, notifying each other by phone in real time so the trains' twins in the other basement could seem to "arrive" on the other layout.   

We don't do this with entire trains or in real time, but we do "send" each other several cars that have orders to be set out at industries on our respective layouts.  I'll go into this in more detail in future posts but the video above provides a brief visual explanation of what we're doing.   Its been a lot of fun and has also motivated both of us to initiate layout improvements for better operations and visuals as we photograph and video the action.

More to come!

Meanwhile the Mets are working on a come back as the score is 4-3...but I gotta get to bed.  Work week starts tomorrow.  Have a good one!

Video sound: I live and learn

Hello all!   I've posted several videos with train sound effects in the background playing on my iPod as I film train action on my layout.  For the first time recently, I decided to add some music to a video and learned a quick reminder about copyright.

I was posting a video tribute to the Penn Central since I was reminded by my friend John that March 31st of this year is the 40th anniversary of the last day of operation for the ill fated merger of the Pennsylvania and New York Central Railroads.  Conrail took effect April 1st, 1976.  Three of us; John, Neal, and myself decided to all post PC themed videos that day.   I thought I'd so something different and play '70s music that made references to trains in the background as my black PC locos pulled trains by the camera.  I got creative and arranged to have parts of Jimmy Hendrix's "I hear My Train a Comin'",  The Doobie Brothers "Long Train Runnin"", and Cat Steven's "Peace Train" augment the video action.  I was so pleased with the creative process and the way it came out that I completely forgot to even consider copyright issues.

Well,...YouTube didn't.  My video's audio was muted immediately after posting.  Clicking on the "Learn more" link on the message bar advising me about the issue told me that the Hendrix song in particular was a problem.  I was given the option of deleting the song, which I did, but when I returned to the video all three songs had been removed.  I've decided to leave it silent but wrote a description in the video's comments section about how the songs fit in.  Here is the PC Tribute video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLuBVREZ6Pg 

I did some research and found this site describing the YouTube copyright issue as well as options for selecting music that avoids the problem.

http://mashable.com/2010/12/08/ind-music-for-youtube-videos/#ey7B54L.9SqD

I followed the link to  one of the Creative Commons audio sites; incompetech.com
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/   and decided to use a selection for my next video...which I'll describe in my next post!

New Kings Port & Western Power

Hi all,

A recent chance glance at eBay revealed an auction for a never-been-used, undecorated Athearn "Super F7" (with the large heavy weight) which I ended up winning at an excellent price.   The unit quickly arrived after purchase.  I was originally going to paint it Penn Central black but then decided my freelanced Kings Port & Western needed more road power.

I have a pair of F7's that I painted for the KP&W a long time ago and have since found that the paint color I used is no longer available.   I ran into this when looking for colors for the RS3 unit I recently added to the KP&W roster.  The old F7s are lighter than the new RS3.

My plan was to paint the loco shell the same blue as the RS3 but to experiment with orange stripe decals as  away of further decorating the engine instead of attempting to mask and paint a stripe myself.  Looking over MicroScale's catalog it seemed that their C&O passenger car  decal set might have the sort of stripes I was looking for so I purchased a set at my LHS to give it a try.  While at the store I also noticed an F7B shell for $4.00 which I purchased, thinking to make a matched consist with the new F7A.  
I have an Athearn Penn Central B unit and figured I could interchange the shells as I wished for each road.   

I started with the B unit and achieved decent results.  The orange stripe is more yellow than the stripe on my other KP&W F7s but I figured I could live with it.   I liked how easily the decal made adding a stripe compared to masking and painting.

I added the road name decals I had made by RailGraphics.

 

My attempt to add stripes to the F7A, however was a disaster.  The remaining stripes on the decal sheet immediately disintegrated on contact with the loco shell and had to be quickly wiped off.  A friend suggests the decal sheet may have been old, leading to the decals becoming fragile to the point of uselessness.

So, I went back to the drawing board and decided to mask and paint a stripe using a light color of orange I had on had used on my KP&W boxcar fleet.

 After the first application I realized that it was a poor match for the C&O decal stripe and wasn't anywhere near close the orange on the early F7s I custom painted years ago.  I'd have THREE different shades of orange striping on the layout.  I decided that was unacceptable and ended up re-doing the entire project, using the orange and blue I used on the RS3 unit.  Here is how the new F7 A&B consist came out.

Here is the new F7A&B consist in front of the older pair of F7A's along with the RS3.  There is now more uniformity among the fleet.  It has been suggested that the lighter units underwent some fading after being exposed to the elements, much like the Penn Central Red P's fading to pink or the Yellow on the PC FL9's fading to white.  I can go with that idea,  From now on, however, any additional KP&W locos will sport the blue and orange matching the new F7A&B consist and the RS3.

The F7A still need headlights, window glass, and horns.  These were not included in the box with the unit, which probably accounted, in part, for its low sales price. I  also plan to add some grab bars on the roof just behind the windshield.

So, that's the convoluted account of the Kings Port & Western's latest power.  The new F7 runs great, by the way!

Removing roof walks/running boards

Hi all!

I'm switching gears with this topic.  A while ago, a viewer of one of my YouTube videos commented about the roof walks on my Penn Central boxcars, noting that they would have been removed during my layout's era.    Frankly I hadn't thought about that but the feedback motivated me to take a closer look at videos of Penn Central trains (The Green Frog series I own and other films found online) to check that out.  I noticed that the Penn Central boxcars in most trains indeed did not have roof walks while many of the cars from other roads still sported them.  Many of the Penn Central cars looked more modern than the 40 foot cars from some other roads and appeared to never have had a roof walk.   I have ONE car like that on my roster!  (seen below)

Conversations with fellow modelers and some research online yielded impressions, if not primary source information, about the removal of roof walks (also apparently known as running boards) from boxcars in American railroading.   It seems, according to several sources, that the ICC ruled that boxcars ordered after April 1966 and/or delivered after October 1966 were no longer to be fitted with roof walks.  Hand brakes had to be set low so crewmen no longer needed to access the roof to brake a car.  Ladders were cut shorter (as in the photo above).   Presumably this was a movement in the industry to reduce the risk of injuries to crewmen on the car roofs.

 A number of sources noted that there had been a 1974 cut off date for when all roof walks were to be removed, but it was extended beyond the Penn Central era.

So, based on this information I decided to remove some of the roof walks from many of my PC boxcars to reflect the prototype practice of attempting to comply with the new safety reg.   A lot of my PC boxcar fleet are Tyco and Bachmann cars that I upgraded with Kaydee couplers and metal wheelsets.  Most had roof walks that were removable but others are molded on which, of course, makes them impossible to remove w/o damaging the car.   

Examples of removable:

Molded example:

Here's how I worked with the cars that had removable roof walks.   It is easy to pry the roof walks from the top of the car.  Doing so leaves the roof with four holes that accommodated the roof walk installation pegs.   These holes need to be filled in and disguised.  Tools for the job included Green Putty, needle files, some fine grade sandpaper (not pictured), and weathering chalks.

After filling the holes with putty, allowing it to dry, and doing some initial sanding and filing, the now roofwalkless (is that a word!?) cars await more detailed care.

Sanding wore away some of the factory paint on the models, creating black streaks on the roofs that actually look like road-weary weathering to me.    The Green Putty is clearly visible since it is a lighter shade than PC Jade Green.  It couldn't be that easy, of course!

I continued light sanding and filing to remove as much of the putty as possible without re-opening the holes.  I then brushed on rust colored and black artist chalk powder to blend the putty with the roofs.  I don't usually seal chalk weathering with a matte finish spray since that tends to virtually obliterate most of the effects, but I did with these cars and it seemed to turn out OK. 

I'm especially pleased with the way this Bachmann car turned out

 

This was a relatively easy project that yielded satisfying results.  I still run some PC cars that have molded roof walks but I'm content with the idea that the Penn Central just hasn't yet gotten around to removing those yet.  The company certainly had a lot of other issues to worry about!  

Thanks for taking a look!

Operations 4: FINALLY! A video about the car cards!

I've finally completed and uploaded a YouTube video about the use of the Penn Central Car Movement Cards.   Hope this is helpful in describing how I'm using them to run ops on the layout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QdNXt97AFo

Operations 3: A Card Carrying Member.

Hello all,

My previous post about using Penn Central Car Movement Cards prompted some discussion about the inconvenience involved in carrying and organizing a stack of cards around the layout while switching a train.   I'm putting together a video demonstrating the use of the cards but its taking longer than I expected, so I thought I'd do an abbreviated post to the blog today to show off an idea I recently came up with to deal with the issue of carrying several cards around. 

I like the idea of using a switch list too but I also want to incorporate the cards.   I use a clip board to carry the switchlist.   After assembling a number of boxes for my cards, it occurred to me to add a card box to the clip board so all information is handy and easy to carry.

The upcoming video will feature a 13 car train.   Here are the corresponding cards for set-outs fanned out like a deck.

Here is the switchlist based on the cards for set-outs and also for the pick-us that are staged on the layout.

And, here is the newly fashioned clipboard that accommodates both!

Even with this convenient arrangement I still need to set the clipboard down sometimes to run the train.

This is accomplished by installing a couple of conveniently located hooks on the fascia.

More to come, but I wanted to post something about what I'm up to!

Enjoy the Super Bowl today!

Ralph