PCCM 109: Part 1 on the KPD

Hello and welcome to our 109th Penn Central Car Movement (PCCM) series!   

This multi-installment "virtual ops" involves an exchange of freight traffic between John's New York Central Train Layout and my own Kings Port Division.

The action on the Kings Port Division begins at the Kings Port & Western Railroad's Mayfield Yard where a crew is about to board RS3 #566 to run a transfer over to the Penn Central's West Mill Yard.

The transfer's manifest includes this aging former NYC Pacemaker boxcar loaded with new ACCO 55 gallon drums for Drywell Ink...

...along with a string of coal hoppers from the KP&W's connection with the Lehigh Valley's coal region.

After the KP&W brakeman checks all of the couplings and the air is up, the transfer is cleared to leave Mayfield Yard for West Mill.

Meanwhile over at West Mill all is quiet except for...

...this morning's carfloat arrival with a string of empty hoppers from the Port Owen Con Ed plant and EL Boxcar #73510 loaded with Port Owen Brick Company bricks for Gotham Builders Supply.

SD9 #6922 pulls the cars off of the float with the help of three spacer cars, a pair of flats and an old Pennsy gondola.

The EL boxcar is set out separately in the yard while the string of empty hoppers is put aside for the Mayfield Transfer which is expected to arrive within the hour.

 The Mayfield Transfer's RS3 rumbles out of the South side tunnel and later backs its train into the yard.

West Mill's switcher #8951 moves the transfer's caboose to assist the KP&W crew with the exchange of coal loads and empties

The KP&W crew then performs a runaround move with their #566  to get behind the string of empty hoppers and then pushes them out of West Mill for the return trip to Mayfield.

The Mayfield Transfer receives permission to access the mainline from the Dispatcher's Office in King Port.

The train leaves West Mill for Mayfield Yard.

 That was a lot of work for two PCCM cars!  :)

There is only a brief lull at West Mill to contemplate this further before the Bloomberg Turn arrives after having served the industrial park up in the Catskills.   The Turn gets a red signal to hold for a KP&W transfer from Binghamton to Williams Yard in Kings Port, the BiWi-3 running with two leased B&O F7As in the consist.

 

The Bloomberg Turn continues to hold while the BiWi-3 prepares to drop off six empty coal hoppers from Corning Glass.  They will later be forwarded to Hudson Coal by the Penn Central.

A KP&W crewman makes the cut to set out the six coal hoppers

The BiWi-3 makes the set out and then continues on to Kings Port.

The two PCCM cars delivered to Kings Port are PS2 empty covered hoppers for the KP&W to forward to Hedberg Aggregates.

The last railroad action for today will be the dispatch of two locals from Williams Yard to gather PCCM cars to transfer to West Mill.   A KP&W GP9 assigned to the "Steel Job" will pick up coil cars, gondolas, and empty coal hoppers from KP Steel.   Another GP9 ready to depart will collect cars from nearby businesses as the "Yard Local". 

 Watch the two locomotives depart with their cabooses from the Williams Yard Engine Facility in the video below:

 The Yard Local will be picking up three tankers loaded with diesel fuel for the LIRR Morris Park Engine Terminal...

...a former Early Bird Service boxcar now empty at the Team Track to be delivered to REVCO in Bloomberg...

 ...and two NYC double door boxcars loaded with Peerless Appliances for All City Storage and one of the company's special large cooling units for Suffolk County Community College.

 The Yard Local reaches Ulster Ave. where Gulf and the Team Track are located.

After making the pick ups there the Local heads to Peerless Appliance.

 The Yard Local makes its last pick up.

The two trains return to Williams Yard.  First the Yard Local which is then followed by a lengthy Steel Job.

That's it for today!  Check back tomorrow when a transfer frm Williams Yard to West Mill sets the stage for the dispatch of a train to Selkirk with cars for the N.Y.C.T.L.

Layout changes: End of 2024

 

 Hello!

A year ago I made a major change on my layout by removing a large loop and transforming a continuous run track plan on two levels into an "out and back" configuration with a new yard for building and staging trains.   I've been enjoying this new arrangement that provides more operations options.

I posted about this change in February of 2023.

Since then I've been looking at ways to further enhance the appearance of this set up and to increase its model railroad operations potential.

While the new Williams Yard worked well, I regretted losing the locomotive facilities I had on the original layout and I also thought the yard seemed too visibly "close" to the rest of  the layout.    I wanted trains to appear to travel farther to and from the staging yard.

In December 2023 I resolved this proximity issue by creating the visual divider that can be seen on the right side of the photo below.   Light blue foam core boards reinforced with wood strips separate the yard lead to Williams Yard (its tower can be seen in the foreground)

.....from the rest of the yard and the new city scene in the background on the other side.  Buildings extending over the tracks cover the holes in the foam core divider on either side.

The advantage of this new arrangement is that trains staged in the yard are relatively out of sight and seem to come out on the left side of the divider as if they had traveled some distance before emerging on the scene.  The Penn Central U Boat and the B&M Geeps seen at the bottom right of the photo below represent trains coming out of Williams Yard.

If you look in the background of the photo above you will see the new location for Peerless Appliance.  This industry was originally one of my "Facade Industries"  that I used in our Penn Central Car Movement (PCCM) virtual ops with John and Neal to increase the number of businesses they could send cars to.

Here is is as it used to be...a mere building flat on my shelf layout for staged photos to suggest KP&W switching action at the industry.

 

 Now its a three dimensional industry where I can actually perform switching operations.!

Battaglia Brother's Warehouse was another PCCM industry that was just a building flat.   Its location didn't allow for a track to serve it

So, I imagined that it shared the industrial spur that passed under Blue Ribbon Flour by the green tower seen below.  I suggested the set outs at Battaglia Brothers by shoving freight cars under the bridge where they would supposedly reach a lower level loading dock at the warehouse.

After creating a brick building to disguise the opening on the Williams Yard side of the visual divider it occurred to me that it, along with an already existing long brick building behind the yard tracks, could become the new Battaglia Brother's Warehouse, another three dimensional switchable business and a sizeable PCCM consignee!

 I also took this new remodeling as an opportunity to add features that I previously kept in storage and only brought out as needed for PCCM moves such as the dock where pipes are off loaded for the Hudson Valley Co-op.   The crane has just unloaded the flat car at the dock.

You can see one of the locomotive facility's sand towers to the right of the crane.

Here is an image of the locomotive service area before I removed the large loop from the original layout.  The narrow straight section I created in the loop's place to create Williams Yard didn't provide space for the engine house.

 

Here is a photo from November 2023 of Williams Yard on its narrow straight benchwork.  No room for the locomotive servicing area!

I recently added this removable four inch wide extension to the front of the Williams Yard scene that allows me to place the engine house over one live track in the yard and create two additional dummy tracks to make the scene look like a busy locomotive servicing area. 

That little bit of extra width helped create this scene.  The track emerging from the farthest engine house door is the live track.   A locomotive can now be called from the house to later couple up with cars on other tracks prior to being dispatched from Williams Yard.

That's the update from Kings Port!   As John recently noted, it is often said that a model railroad is never really finished!  Stay tuned for photos and video featuring this remodeled portion of the layout in future PCCM virtual ops series!