Merry Christmas Everyone!

First snowfall on the PRSL:

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)

Catching Up #3 - Couldn't Resist

I am trying to shave my engine (112) and freight car (576) collections by about 50% but I saw this beauty on an eBay estate sale and could not resist.

MicroTrains Reading FT set

It also gave me an excuse to let the Reading take over the Camden roundhouse with an F9, RS3, FA1, and an I10 consol sharing the spotlight.

Other post-September activities included jury duty and preparing/submitting an entry into Model Railroad Hobbyist's TOMA  module contest. Silly me thought that since I built my layout in modules I should be able to bang out an entry in about 20 hours. Well way, way more than a hundred hours later after writing, re-writing, rewriting,... picture taking, re-picture taking, re-picture taking,.. and arguing with my Word Master seminary buddy (Niel Bech) the entry was submitted and exhaustion settled in.

Here's hoping the entry meets their expectations, Probably won't know until April. The modules focused on Woodbury NJ where the PRSL's 3 branches (Millville/Vineland, Salem, and Penns Grove/Deepwater) all coalesced into a flurry or rail activity. Following is a prototype photo and my feeble attempts to imitate it.

Woodbury Millville to Camden local passenger train No.760. January 1951, R.L. Long photo, W.J. Coxey collection

Catching Up #2: Engine Maintenance

I have collected a large fleet (10) of Atlas Alco RS3s. I started with Pennsy units from the original Atlas release, and built from there because I needed multiple Reading units to faithfully reproduce their coal drag motive power on the PRSL. I also collected extras since that is the recommended chassis to do Shapeways' Baldwin AS-16s (the PRSL main motive power). I need 4 but Shapeways painting (and chassis shaving) is beyond my capabilities but somewhere down the road I may find someone willing to do the work in trade for some of my vast selection of excess freight cars and buildings.

Anyway besides the 3 differently numbered PRR RS3s I had a lot of multiple engine numbers. Removing the numbering with alcohol was easy. I renumbered one of the PRR units successfully and butchered one of the Reading renumberings. Fortunately one of my operating crew volunteered to do the rest.

I also replaced the PRR shell on an Atlas FA1 with a Reading shell I acquired giving me a pair. Removing the numbering on that unit was not as successful but I picked at the last digit enough that it could possibly be a 3 instead of a duplicate 5.

All the units except the ones waiting to be renumbered have been treated with Doc O'Brien's Grimy Black pastels to remove the sheen. (My weathering capabilities are severely limited by being partially color blind. Therefore I ignore most of the 10 pastel bottles and only use the ones with "black" or "rusty" on their label.) I also worked on all their trucks with a mixture of black, rusty brown and rusty red. I found that mixing the pastel powders with a little water creates a paint that sticks well to the outer truck frames.

This whole project started by removing the shells to lube the power mechanisms. The units were old and noisy (from the beginning). They are now all lubed (and still noisy). I also replaced all rapido couplers with MicroTrain pilot conversions.

I still have one RS3 that has defied my efforts to remove its shell (and yes I have the instruction sheet for all the good it does). I also have managed to accidentally drop and thereby disassemble two trucks and now I understand why the manufacturer suggests acquiring new ones instead of trying to put the gears on the original trucks back together.

Throw in some geeps and yes my motive power fleet now looks more realistic (read less shiny) and more functional.

And yes I just had to put a Reading FA1 temporarily at the head of WY840 returning empties from Deepwater.

An un-grimed GP38 between 2 "grimees"

It''s Has Been A While & Op Session #9

It's been awhile since the last post and I'll try to catch up with a couple of posts in a row.

First of all we had an operations session (#9) in September with my regular crew (pictures below) which was highlighted by me passing out while talking. I regained consciousness with 8 eyes staring at me and them trying to decide if they should call 911. My wife is a nurse so we went that route. Evidently my blood pressure was way down (falling as low as 60/40 during the next few days). The doctor has since removed the medication I had been taking (for years) for high blood pressure and that has solved the initial issues. Of course, now I am recording high blood pressure and getting mild headaches. So the medical folks have to decide which way they want to kill me as we go forward.

As I lay on the couch downstairs, I was pleased to hear all the laughing going on in the loft. The crew had a good time running trains. Of course when I returned to the layout the next day it was difficult to find any cars in the sidings that had matching waybills. I don't even know who to blame. I guess I will just give them all lots of demerits. 😈

CSX PRR Heritage ES44

I reserved this engine years ago and pretty much forgot about it until I got an email that it had been shipped to me. Pretty unit but the lettering is kinda small and gets hidden by the handrails. I wonder if Fox Valley will do a replacement shell to match the lettering on their NS PRR replacement shell? 😊

These things can pull! Lifted a 12' string of triple hoppers up a 2+% grade with 2 engines.

Operations Session Script 1

The yard tends to be the first area to bottleneck during a quarterly operations session and it usually takes the operators some time to come up to speed (i.e. remembering what they are supposed to be doing) so I figured I would jump start the process and script the first moves for this month’s session.

The spreadsheet’s summary looks like gobbledygook, so I’ve added pictures to illustrate the moves. The process takes 2 yard operating in concert to be efficient.

The first yard operator (Op1) positions  yard switcher (SW1) on the inbound/outbound yard lead (I/O) into the yard and then retrieves the Philadelphia Transfer Freight (loads and needed empties from Philly to Camden, NJ) from staging and crosses over from the second main to the first main.

The second yard operator (Op2) takes another yard switcher (SW2) and retrieves the cars going back to Philly from yard track 5 and pulls them out to yard lead 1.

Op1 drops the cabin and separates from the inbound train, proceeds over the crossover from mainline 1 (ML1) to mainline 2 (ML2), reverses direction and positions itself on ML2 just beyond its cabin (still on ML1).

Op2/SW2 has now shoved the Philly outbound cars to SW1 on the I/O lead, separates and backs away

Op1/SW1 pulls the outbound cars from the I/O lead across to ML2, reverses direction and pushes them to the Philly engine.

Op1/SW1 reverses and goes to ML1 to retrieve the inbound cars, couples, reverses past inbound yard lead switch. Reverses and shoves the cars to Op2/SW2 on the I/O lead.

Op1/SW1 goes back to ML1 to retrieve PRR cabin and places it on the end of the outbound Philly Transfer which then heads into staging.

Meanwhile Op2/SW2 takes the inbound cars and begins blocking them into locals

The 5th & 6th cars need to be blocked into the Deepwater local (WY841) on yard track 3.

Add a cabin and move the train to the I/O lead.

Op1/SW1 places the WY841 on ML2.

Engines are added, the train dispatched, and Red oak tower notified.

While Op2/SW2 blocks the other locals .

The last car is blocked into the Salem local (WY51).

Meanwhile Op1 has retrieved the Deepwater Coal drag from staging (Reading RR engines and caboose) and dispatched it past the Pavonia yard contacting Red Oak tower for handoff.

Op2/SW2 pulls the WY842 hopper empties from yard track 7 and moves them to the I/O lead preparing to turn the WY843/WY842 coal drag on the Deepwater end. Switching the loads for empties is a similar process to the Philly transfer operations.

Now the "only things left" to handle are the next 4 turns (Millville Sand Hog (WY33/34), Millville local (WY27/26), Salem local (WY51/50), and the Tank Sweeper (WY79/80). Listen to the dispatcher!. 😉

DelMonte Distributors Building Complex

Well, I have done it again. I touched a paint can (multiples in fact) and to make it even worse, I got out the weathering pastels again. There were 2 buildings on the layout that were on my to-do list that I wanted to change and both required white paint. I had gotten a can of flat white modelers paint for the projects and already had a can of flat black.

I used an old, old, way “too common”, Revell/Heljan DelRay Foundry (or bakery) building to stand in for a Del Monte Distributors market on Olive Street in Westville. Since the real building was white, here was project number one. Change the appearance of the Revel Bakery and hopeful mask its heritage and match the prototype buildings color. Great idea, right?

Revell/Heljan building at a previous layout location

I had already changed the buildings “give away” signs (Alaskan Travel & Shell Oil) to 2 Del Monte advertisements.

Problem #1:  12 windows and 4 doors to mask.  We were asking for trouble right off the bat.

Following sloppy masking, the white spray paint went on fairly well. The building indeed looked different. But then I decided to weather it with Doc O’Brien’s grimy black weathering powder. I thought you were supposed to be able to blow/wash away the powder if you didn’t like the outcome but I must not have waited long enough for the paint to fully dry. It went on and permanently stuck way more than I desired. Suddenly white is almost black. Lost the main benefit of the color change!

For the second building I was trying to get the effect of an existing line side Westville building. Originally it was Mid-Atlantic Lumber. It now exists on my layout as part of the DelMonte complex.

Nineteen windows, 4 doors, and multiple roofs! I masked it and painted the white portion. The building was ready for me to repaint the top story and roofs to get the effect I wanted. I re-masked it, grabbed the next spray can and went to work. It went on fairly well. Now remember my previous blogs about:

1) You don’t let Rick touch the paint; and

2) Rick is color blind?

When the paint was drying I noticed the roof looked suspiciously like the roof brown spray I use to weather my tracks and it was. I guess that is why I should actually read the paint color name on the can. Oh well, another coat and this time I used the flat black.

Another round of fighting with weathering pastels and I was done. Neither job turned out as planned but I at least met my goal of incremental improvements. (And maybe next time I’ll read the can name - but you can’t really count on that.)

Weathering the RDCs

Leaving Rick alone with pastels is almost as bad as giving him paint!

Last year when I posted an RDC picture on the PRSL Historical Society site I got told that the RDCs were delivered with a dark blue undercarriage, not black (as if I could tell the difference). So today I pulled out the weathering powders and attempted to put a blur tinge to the black undercarriage. I cannot tell the difference in person but the camera picks up the blue (too light of a blue).

While I was at it I also added a grimy black to the fluting and darkened the fans on the ConCor units.