Thursday, December 25, 2014

Christmas 2014

For Christmas this year, the 1950s are temporarily a distant memory. Modern GE's & SD70s (in heritage schemes) are center stage with all the holiday and specialty cars on parade.

In Camden northbound and southbound freights flash by.

 

In Woodbury, south Barber avenue offers an up-close view of freight cars that appear only once a year.


One Solitary Life


He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

He never wrote a book,
He never held an office,
He never went to college,
He never visited a big city,
He never travelled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born,
He did none of the things usually associated with greatness ,
He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty three, his friends ran away.
One of them denied him .
He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth

When he was dead,
He was laid in a borrowed grave,
Through the pity of a friend

Nineteen centuries have come and gone.
And today Jesus is the central figure of the human race, and the leader of mankind's progress.
All the armies that have ever marched,
All the navies that have ever been built and sailed,
All the parliaments that have ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,   put together,   have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life!

Adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124)

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Holiday Chocolate Soup?

When the holidays roll around, unusual freight cars begin to show up on the (my) PRSL.

Based on the last set-outs at Campbell Soup it appears they must be planning to produce a chocolate soup for the holidays! (Sounds good to me.)

Chocolate soup anyone?
Meanwhile there is a problem in Woodbury. Two siding slots left and 7 tank cars of syrup to deliver.



Meanwhile the Camden and Woodbury yards are receiving some unusual freight cars.




And it looks like the NS & UP heritage units have been loaned to provide power (a 60 year time warp is unfolding).

Soon the Christmas trains will be on the go!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Saturday, December 6, 2014

The Operating Session's Final Chapter - The Merchandise Transfer

Actually it should be (and will be) the first chapter of each day since it sets up the day's runs by supplying needed empty freight cars from the Philly side of the river.

Initiating the coal (WY843/WY842) and tanker (WY79/WY80) runs from staging should remove so much work from the Pavonia yard job that the two Tim's might not have enough to do (which means they could find other mischief to get into - and we don't want that)!

I decide in advance what needs to be delivered / shipped from a spreadsheet (see the blog entry for May 31, 2014) which determines when and what kind of cars are needed for the commodities to be handled each day. We have 14 sidings (18 customers) on line and 10 more customers south of the layout portions modeled. In a 7 day week we will process 229 freight cars:
            88        Hopper cars                 (2 power plants and coal furnaces in every town)
            10        Covered hoppers         (DuPont & Shell Chemical on the Penns Grove branch)
            69        Tank cars                     (2 refineries)
              4        Chemical tank cars      (DuPont & Shell Chemical on the Penns Grove branch)
            30        Box cars
            22        Refrigerator cars         (for the gazillion farms in southern NJ - "The Garden State")
              5        Gondolas
              1        Flat car
The 3 staging tracks make this all possible.

The Pavonia yard (remember the PRSL was a North - South, dead-ended line with only the one major yard in Camden on the northern end) does not always have all the cars needed for the day's work. Hence the 3rd staging track for the merchandise transfer run.
The merchandise transfer run from Philly
Three sharks to pull 6 cars - "slightly" over-powered maybe?
Today's run only brought in 5 needed empties (3 reefers, a covered hopper, and a chem tanker). The job would only need 1 or 2 engines but I am showing off some of my sharks that were off-site for work for 79 days. (Pretty, aren't they!) They will return with 17 cars (9 loads and 8 unneeded empties (tanker, gondola, 3 hoppers and 3 box cars). Notice the inbound empties and the outbound empties should be mutually exclusive car types.
Leaving town is a bit different - 18 cars in tow.
Passing Campbell Soup on the way out of Camden
Those sharks were indeed beautiful engines
This run should help keep the yard empty for sorting cars for the day's 5 runs to south Jersey (and enough work to keep Tim junior out of trouble).

Whew! Documenting all these runs was a lot of work. Now I have time to set up the Christmas trains for the grandkids and eventually start working on the layout again.

Happy Birthday Jesus!
Merry Christmas everyone!

Rick