It is with some chagrin that I report the miss-routing of PC boxcar #77047. I'll be blaming it on the carelessness of my 1/87th scale clerks and crewmen on both the Penn Central and King Port & Western, but I suppose the real issue is my eye fell on the wrong cell on the Rail Traffic Management Form we use to determine where cars are going!
The problem was immediately apparent to employees at Woodstock Hills Natural Soda who were expecting the empty boxcar that was supposed to be loaded with soda for Ralph's Grocery Warehouse. They are seen below trying to call out to the KP&W crew leaving Van Winkle Canning on the other side of the tracks, but they couldn't be heard above the GP9's loud whine.
HEY!! COME BACK!!!
The owners of Woodstock Hills, being members of a former hippy commune where they first developed their exotic beverages for fun instead of profit, are usually a pretty laid back couple. Today, not so much! A phone call is made to West Mill where Cappy Foster hears the news about the miss-directed boxcar. The car was interchanged with the KP&W at West Mill and placed on their train to Mayfield Yard instead of the train to Bloomberg. This joint railroad error has Cappy's hair on fire! He gets on the horn to his KP&W counterpart in Mayfield and informs them of the problem in his own colorful style...
After strongly encouraging Cappy and his yard crew to take a visit to a notably warm subterranean destination, Mayfield confirms that PC #77047 has been mistakenly set out at Amalgamated Container (ACCO) and reports the situation will be immediately corrected.
A KP&W crew rushes out to board #922 and heads out to ACCO to pull the car.
About an hour and a half later they return with the errant boxcar.
PC #77047 is quickly added to a transfer run to West Mill
The Transfer arrives headed by a pair of F7As that back the cars into West Mill Yard
PC #77047 is given priority treatment and pulled individually from the train.
The KP&W suspends its usual rule requiring at least five cars before dispatching a train up the Mountain Branch to Bloomberg. Probably a good business move in this case!
The Prodigal Car reaches its intended consignee, Woodstock Hills Natural Soda. The train's brakeman is getting an earful from some company employees while he walks the car in!
THAT concludes P.C.C.M. 68 for real this time! Please continue following along in the future as we've obviously been making an effort to model realistic Penn Central car routing! Happily this was an empty car and not a perishable load. :)
To: West Mill
ReplyDeleteTo: Mayfield Yard
From: Rock Ridge
Acknowledgement - PC car 77047 rerouted to Woodstock Hills Natural Soda
Rock Ridge Yard Out!
Well, I must admit that a miss-routed car can cause havoc or the consignee, yard crew, management, and the real 1:1 operator. I do sympathize with you and at least you made the fix humorous and enjoyable to read. At least I'm not the only one who have a tough time reading the forms...
To: West Mill / Mayfield / Rock Ridge
ReplyDeleteFrom: Terminal Yard
It's not about the mistakes it's how well you recover! The PC & KP&W corrected the misroute in a timely manner which is a credit to them. As you noted thankfully it was an empty car. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Cappy got the call from the shipper and called his counterpart on the KP&W!
I'll confess here that the NYCTL PCCM 68 Part 6 had to be reshot due to the delivery of a wrong car. This had nothing to do with any forms and everything to do with conductor error. I set up the transfer run from Terminal Yard to North Side Yard with the car to be delivered to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse at the end of the freight consist. For whatever reason I took a jade green 50' boxcar for the LIRR from the front of the consist instead of the 40' brown boxcar on the tail of the train. The wrong car was delivered. The LIRR came and went with the wrong car behind the engines. Ugh... Time to reshoot the entire sequence. Oh well, two ops for the price of one!