We've reached the milestone 40th Penn Central Car Movement (P.C.C.M.) series, otherwise known as our "virtual ops"! This series involves three layouts! Neal and his Atlantic Pacific Railroad have done an excellent job setting things up this time by gathering cars on his layout to be sent north toward my King Port Division and John's New York Central Train Layout.
See Neal's blog posts about this action here; http://atlanticpacificrailroad.blogspot.com/2017/10/pccm-40e-pc-train-wv-2-departs.html
Neal's last post involved the dispatch of Train WV-2 (Weehawken to Selkirk) which sets up the arrival of a train at West Mill Yard on my layout. Before WV-2 actually arrives, however, I wanted to describe some action that occurred previous to that point. My first post of the series is titled 40F because Neal already posted 40 A-E.
Things were getting busy at West Mill. A string of oil tankers was placed on the car float for a trip down river. I need to develop more schemes for the car float to increase operational interest. I'm not really sure where the tankers are going but they're about to ship out! :)
Meanwhile, Yardmaster Cappy Foster and the West Mill Yard crew are working to move cars on the Kings Port Division that are part of the usual inter-layout "virtual ops" between my layout and John's, but that also have been assigned intra-layout moves within my layout. These moves are determined by what we call the Rail Traffic Management Form, which is a spreadsheet listing the cycles of moves each car in the virtual ops is involved in. We intentionally created some intra-lyout moves to increase interest on our own layouts and to also add more variety to the work the cars will do between layouts. Some cars are involved in as many as six car movement cycles between industries and yards.
One such car is this Cargill covered hopper that is loaded at Empire Grain on my layout, heads to John's Cargill facility, is then shipped filled with barley for Cavendish Foods and Spirits on my layout, and finally returns again to Empire Grain as an intra-layout move on the Kings Port Division .
The car is later seen being hauled out of West Mill Yard and spotted at Empire Grain.
Other cars that are currently involved in intra-layout moves before they venture out toward John's or Neal's layouts include:
Penn Central gon #288673 loaded with steel coils from KP Steel for Peerless Appliance, and IC boxcar #36130 heading empty to Cavendish Foods to be loaded with packaged meals for Pilgrim State Hospital (a destination accessed via John's layout and the L.I.R.R.)
NYC Hi-cube #173861 now loaded with washing machines from Peerless Appliance is heading to Battaglia's Warehouse on my layout. Eventually the car will be moved to Corning Glass on my layout before being forwarded to Heileman's Brewery with new bottles on John's layout.
Rock Island #35062 is empty after being unloaded at my Quality Fabrications machine shop. Its being forwarded to the RI in Davenport, IA for set out at Ralph's Grocery Warehouse West in Davenport. It will be loaded there and commodities will be shipped to Ralph's Grocery Warehouse East on John's layout. The excellent Hoschton Railway car coupled to it will be moved to International Paper in Rochester via the Kings Port & Western R.R. These are examples of how we've configured operations between our layouts that include intra-layout movements on our own.
Now...for this series' INTER-layout moves between layouts. The following cars will be picked up by WV-2, recently dispatched from Neal's layout, and expected to arrive at West Mill soon. Once added to WV-2 they will proceed to John's New York Central Train Layout for further disposition. As the NYC switcher pulls them out, they include:
Two gons loaded with Steel slabs from KP Steel to Midland Steel via the L.I.R.R.
PC# 104478 loaded with GERN Cement Flux for Lombo Cement, and P&LE #35892 loaded with packaging from Canton Box for Sunshine Biscuits. These cars will also be forward via the connection with the L.I.R.R. on John's layout.
Huge 86 footer NYC #67086 is loaded with ACME Auto Parts for Ford.
Two B&M RBL (#109 & #110) cars loaded with glass bottles for Heileman's Brewery
NYC #80755 loaded with subcontracted machined parts for Reliable Machine, and depressed well flat PC# 766053 carrying the damaged excavator from Sal's Salvage back to Caterpillar. Sal's recently received a loaner excavator on this car and are now promptly sending back their own that is in need of repair.
GM&O #2110 is loaded with cutting oil for Walsh Steel Wool while TP&W # 627 is full of new 55 gallon drums from KP Steel Supply for Drywell Inks.
Bringing up the rear of the cut of cars that will be picked up by WV-2 when it arrives are two empty TOFCs for Terminal Yard.
That's it for today. Next up: WV-2 picks up the cut of cars for Terminal Yard.
