Tuesday, April 30, 2019

P.C.C.M. 60: Final KPD installment

Greetings patient blog followers!

Here is the final installment of the current P.C.C.M. 60 series.  Considering that I really didn't receive a large number of cars this go-around I seem to be needing a lot of posts to show the delivery of all cars!   If you're up for another one, here we go!

We're back at West Mill watching the yard switcher pull cars for a KP&W Mountain Branch run to Bloomberg.   

The PC car is loaded with printed labels for Van Winkle Canning from Berk Enterprises.  The two blue B&M RBLs are loaded with University Millwork cabinets for console Zenith TVs to be made in Bloomberg.

Two KP&W grain hoppers make up the end of this five car train.  You can see one of them peaking out from the GERN tunnel after the string of cars was pulled onto this ready track.  The non-virtual ops grain cars are headed to Agway.

Power for the Bloomberg run is KP&W F7A # 160 and GP9 #769

The orange and blue power backs into its short train...

...pulls it forward from the ready track and then backs it onto the main by WM Tower...

Stops at WM tower for orders...

...and heads up the KP&W Mountain Branch

After negotiating the climb up the Catskills PC #229046 is set out at Van Winkle Canning.


The two KP&W grain hoppers are left at Bloomberg's Agway elevator.  Bell Pole located across the track is seen loading P&LE gon  #40331 with large poles for a future P.C.C.M. move. 

B&M #109 and 110 are set out at Zenith TV across the tracks from Quality Fabrications.   Remember, "Zenith...The Quality Goes in Before the Name Goes On!"


The last car forwarding of this series on the KPD involves these three NYC 50 ft. double door boxcars loaded with cable, wire harnesses, and other electrical components from Bruce Electrical Supply for IBM in Binghamton.  

The string of empty coal hoppers below will travel westward on the KP&W along with the NYC boxcars.   The loaded coal hoppers in the foreground were brought in by the KP&W yesterday are now on the car float ready for their trip to Port Owen's power plant.

The empties are pulled out...

B&O hoppers convey a sense of the connection the KP&W has  with the Baltimore & Ohio at its Western Terminus in Salamanca, NY.

The hoppers are pushed on a ready track to join the three NYC boxcars.



About two hours later a mixed freight coming off the KP&W route from the west arrives with pooled KP&W and B&O F7As at the head end. 


The train (East Extra 231) passes by the cars it will soon pick up for the trip west to Binghamton and beyond.


The Extra's KP&W caboose slowly rolls by the last hopper in the cut of cars.  It will soon be tacked on to this car to designate the rear of a train heading West.


The train rolls beyond the entrance to West Mill Yard to shove its cars into the yard tracks.

Making the reverse shove...


Once the cars from East Extra 231 are set out at West Mill Yard the locomotives are freed so they can move in front of the cut of NYC boxcars and empty hoppers.






The train now identified as West Extra 110 heads out of West Mill toward Binghamton, NY.

After the train reaches Binghamton the NYC cars are removed from the train and sorted into a local to be spotted at IBM. 

That concludes P.C.C.M. 60 on the Kings Port Division!  Thanks for following along!   Check out this action on the other layouts participating in this series!

John R. New York Central Train Layout

Neal's Atlantic Pacific R.R.

John B.'s Los Feliz and Northwestern







 

Monday, April 29, 2019

P.C.C.M. 60: 6th post Trains dispatched from West Mill

Hello all!

We last left West Mill Yard with cars sorted for assembly into trains that will deliver the virtual ops cars that came to the Kings Port Division for this series.

Starting off with the Penn Central,  GP9 #7085 gets the call to run a short Turn toward Kings Port.


Coupling up to three cars, the HRC car full of wine for Reynolds Beverage Distributors, The NYC Early Bird loaded with Steel Wool for Booms Ready Mix, and a non-virtual ops PC boxcar for the Team Track.


The short hop leaves West Mill...

...and arrives at Kings Port.

Whoo boy...the cars were not arranged properly.  The PC boxcar should have been at the front of the train so all three cars could have been pushed into the shared spur in one move.  Now it will take additional work to set out this car.  

The other two cars are set out at their respective consignees...

Booms Ready Mix...

...and Reynolds Beverage Distributors

The rookie brakeman gets an earful from his engineer about the misplaced PC car. (Shhhhh!  Its actually MY fault!)

The newbie routes the switch for the Geep to set out the car.

...and it is placed at the Team Track dock.


After the set-out the Geep needs to back up to access the mainline.  Normally the brakeman would ride along to reach the switch.  "Hoof it rookie" growls the engineer who didn't appreciate having to do extra moves.  

After the switch is thrown for the loco to take the main, the Geep pulls forward to the switch that will let it access the Gulf Facility.  More walking for the new guy who is beginning to contemplate a change in career. 



#7085 pulls a string of tankers

The brakeman realigns the switch for the main and then takes one more walk to reach the locomotive for the ride back to West Mill.

When the train ties up at West Mill the rookie doesn't spend any extra time with his engineer.

The next move is courtesy of the KP&W.  It will involve one of my favorite ops on the KPD...the KP&W's Coal to Carfloat job.   I've documented this operation in pics and video before so I won't go into great detail, but below we see a string of loaded hoppers from Mayfield Yard arriving at West Mill.



The coal train's RS3 locomotive passes the cars it will soon be taking back to Mayfield.


The coal hoppers are pushed into West Mill

 ...and the RS3 is cut to go after the cut of cars for Mayfield.


Pulling ahead prior to departure the West Mill Yard switcher tacks on the train's caboose.


After receiving permission to proceed to Mayfield the train takes the KP&W branch.  The two orange KP&W boxcars are the virtual ops cars on this train.

The train arrives at Mayfield Yard.  More evidence of its connection with the Lehigh Valley at Mayfield is visible here.

The two KP&W cars will be cut for a local to Peerless Appliance.

The cars are set out the first thing next morning.


That's it for today.  More ops tomorrow!