There is so much action in this current virtual ops series that it made sense to show you some of the prep moves in advance to provide some context for where cars came from before being dispatched to the New York Central Train Layout and Atlantic Pacific R.R.
In the last installment a B&M train arrived at Williams Yard while a KP&W transfer from Binghamton and a PC run from the Bloomberg Branch arrived at West Mill, all bringing in cars for this virtual ops series.
Lets take a look at more local action near West Mill. A new industry debuts on the KPD as the first load of lumber is placed in NYC #47062 at Half Moon Wholesale Lumber. This load will be sent to Mike's Lumber near Rock Ridge on the A.P.R.R.
The first southbound Turn I've shown from West Mill to serve Half Moon returns with NYC #47062 and a few "non-player cars" supposedly from other industries.
NYC #47062 is recorded by the ACI scanner.
The short Turn passes by the yard to reach the yard entrance by WM Tower.
...and eventually backs its cars into West Mill Yard.
Meanwhile a northbound Turn that left West Mill earlier this morning has arrived at Hedberg Aggregates.
Its picking up PS-2 covered hoppers KP&W #445052 and PC #883190 loaded with lime for the Port Owen Brick Co.
The two covered hoppers are later spotted in the yard.
A local yard run to Canton Box Co. exchanges the 50 foot orange Hoschton Railway boxcar now loaded with packaging materials for Freihoefers (A.P.R.R.) with empty P&LE boxcar #35892 that will be loaded for Sunshine Biscuits in the next P.C.C.M.
The HRC car is returned to the yard...
...which is filling up! We'll leave them to it at West Mill and take a look over at the KP&W's Williams Yard for a little while.
These virtual ops cars were seen set out at Williams Yard in the previous installment.
They are now being hauled to the interchange track with the Penn Central in Kings Port by S12 #34.
...where they will join PC #229046 that was set out earlier from Blue Ribbon Flour.
Later that day four TFOCs are loaded at Williams Yard's facility and are also set out on the interchange. The short KP&W trailer and the PC cab are nifty gifts from John R.!
The interchange is pretty full! Let's bounce back over to West Mill and see what's happening. Yardmaster Cappy Foster is trying to stay ahead of all the inbound traffic as he knows a KP&W transfer from Mayfield is arriving to fill his yard to near capacity!
The transfer, Extra #566 pulls in more virtual ops cars like these three 60 auto parts cars from ACME Auto Parts for Ford.
...and two cars from Amalgamated Container, PC boxcar #104478 loaded with new drums for Drywell Ink and PC gon #288673 loaded with storage tanks for West Chemical.
The last car on the train, PC #360063 is loaded with Cavendish Foods meals for Ralph's Grocery Whse.
Time to get to work on this full yard!
The first order of business is loading the car float for Port Owen. Usually this just involves placing a string of loaded coal hoppers on the float for the power company there. This time, however a new industry, Port Owen Brick, also requires cars! The two PS-2 hoppers loaded with lime are included with the coal cars.
The car float is pulled out of West Mill by the Tug Robert H. (named after my father in-law who loved looking at river barges)
...and after a half hour journey docks at Port Owen. This is the first time Port Owen has appeared in a virtual ops series. We will see the power plant later but for now these pictures show the carfloat apron and Port Owen Brick Co. in the background.
An SD9 pulls cars from the float with an NYC gon serving as a "reacher" car.
The PS-2s loaded with lime are the last cars off.
The coal hoppers have been set out in a string to deliver to the power plant. They'll wait for the SD9 to deliver the PS-2s to Port Owen Brick Co. first.
An overall shot of the new industry and car float area.
That concludes this "pre-series" post. The next posts will feature the dispatch of trains to the N.Y.C.T.L. and the A.P.R.R.
