Christmas 2021

 

Christmas Trains 2021

 Be sure to turn on the sound. The Pentatonix is an outstanding acapella group. 

Merry Christmas!     Just remember the "Reason for the Season!" 

First snow of the season is cheering up the Christmas season. A first run ConCor RDC (re-lettered for the PRSL) pulls up to the passenger shelter as an old Trix 0-6-0 spots a box car at the local lumber yard. An old Micro-Machines log truck patiently waits to dump it load.

Continuing our “first snow of the season” theme with ancient N scale artifacts. Here is the Camden roundhouse with all first-generation locomotives. The original Atlas Pennsy RS3 is in the far stall while the later Atlas Reading RS3 is in the first stall. Then comes the Trix PRR 0-6-0 B6 switcher, the Bachmann Reading 2-8-0 Consolidated, and the Trix PRR 4-6-2 K4 Pacific.

The fifth stall contains the first Atlas GP30. I have four of them from the collection of Barry Wingard (he provided most of the pictures for the first Greenberg N scale price guide (Dallas Mallerick). He was an avid collector of everything produced in N scale.

On the turntable is the first run Atlas PRR FA1 along with the cut-off Reading FA1 (Bev-Bel???). The ConCor PRR crane in the background would also qualify as first-generation N scale.

At Christmas the serious 1950s freight trans take a break and the display cabinet queens come out to pull the Christmas and special run cars.

So sit back at Olive Street in Westville and watch the Christmas parade trains march by!

Some Misc Pictures

Sun's coming up over Brown Tower in Camden with the Campbell Soup Company workers beginning to arrive for work.

Beautiful day at Woodbury Lake whether you are in the canoes or fishing from the dock.

The redone Heljan turntable pit (after 50 years I got tired of the monotone black:
Before:

After:

Reading Day at the roundhouse with some time-warped engines visiting.

Oldies Day with all 1970s equipment: Trix 0-6-0, Trix 4-6-2, Atlas FA1, Bachman 2-8-0, Atlas GP30, Atlas RS3, ConCor RDC.

Hobby Magazine Articles

(The 3 articles slated for publishing will NOT be being published!)  

The first article deals with the insanity of tearing apart 70% of my 95% complete Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines layout. It explores all the interesting obstacles along the way.

Photo by Anna Goncharova from unsplash

Since I am inherently a windbag, the first article was so long it had to be split into two parts. The second part will deal with operating the new layout which was now capable of running a full day's PRSl 1950s freight schedule on the lines operating through Woodbury, NJ.

Photo from the  Bill Lane collection

The last part deals with a separate topic. It is my firm belief that two things make a model railroad look like a Christmas toy train layout. The second reason deals with the curves, especially turnbacks, and this article deals with the issues they create and offers some options to deal with them.

Woodbury Train Station Kit

 Right on Tracks Models kindly sent me some draftings of the PRSL Woodbury Train Station Kit they are developing. Target delivery time is sometime in the winter. The kit will include the tool shed and the waiting platform on the opposite side of the tracks from the train station. (At one time there was a 3-track mainline passing the station.)

Woodbury Train Station kit model from Right on Track Models

After running across his beautiful model kit of the Tuckerton station, I contacted Richard at Right on Tracks Models about the feasibility of adding a Woodbury, NJ station kit to his lineup. For the last 8 months I have been running down contacts from the Woodbury Historical Society and the group that led the historical restoration of the station. I have also been taking/collecting pictures and measuring the building.

I am absolutely thrilled that Richard has agreed to get this project on his drawing board for this winter. His previous kits can be found at: https://www.rightontrackmodels.com/

PRSL Vol 2 p104

Woodbury is the county seat of Gloucester County and was founded in 1683 by Henry Wood, a Quaker, from England. Its short-lived (8 years) first railroad, the Woodbury and Camden Railroad, came to town in 1838. 

 George Green brought his patent medicine and glass manufacturing to Woodbury in the 1870s and the town flourished. (I’m sure the opium content of his medicines spurred its reputation as a world class medical cure-all.) 

 In 1917, 139 daily trains passed the triple-tracked Woodbury train station. At one time 40+ passenger trains a day stopped at Woodbury but alas, the automobile triumphed and the last passenger train through town ran in 1971. In 1996 the station was restored and since then has been a popular historic restaurant.

Ricght on Tracks Models - Tuckahoe Station

The Big Picture

Someone on one of the forums was asking folks to submit pictures of their entire layout, not just a scene. That is a tough assignment if your layout is in a loft with tight ceiling clearances. Although my layout is only 12'x17' I can't get back far enough or high enough to encompass the whole railroad in one shot.

Here's my best attempts:

Right Side

Left Side

Book Shelf Induced Dioramas

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!     Just remember the "Reason for the Season!"

Op Session 10 - The Whole Day - Part I

I will be winding down this blog (except for occasional special events) since the major portions of the rebuild are essentially completed and there were no responses to my "anybody reading" request on the August 8^th post. It is therefore appropriate to finish with recreations of highlights of our last operating session where we basically ran a complete PRSL 1954 freight schedule. (Engine assignments were fudged!)

This will be in 2 parts.

We began the day with the Philadelphia transfer arriving in the Pavonia yard with loads from the frontier (anything beyond southern New Jersey). It is headed prototypically by a Pennsy RT624 (sometimes PRR FAs). A pair of BS12s head out to meet it and begin breakdown and reclassification of the freight cars.

A quick aside here. The only N scale manufacturer equipment available painted for the PRSL are (3) Atlas GP38s (w/o the extended cab) and (6) Bowser N5 cabins (both logos). A friend has also re-lettered an Atlas VO-1000 (~BS12) and 2 RDCs for me. I have (4) AS-16 (WM version) shells but will need to find help getting them completed and on the road. The AS-16s were the entire PRSL road diesel power from 1950 until the arrival of the GP38s in 1967. When the PRSL needed additional power, it was provided from it's parents, the Pennsylvania RR and the Reading Company. Almost anything the parents had could find its way onto the rails in South Jersey.

Kicking off the road parade WY841 was the coal drag to supply the power plant in Deepwater. Here we find it leaving Camden.

I am sure the Woodbury commuter did not find the swirling coal dust enjoyable during WY841's run-by!

WY843 the Deepwater local leaves next and here we finding it stopping along the way to deliver sand and cement to the Buzby Bros. facility in Westville. (All trains on these branches are “turns”. They leave the Camden freight yards go to one of the 3 branch terminuses (Millville/Salem/Deepwater) and return to Camden the same day.)

WY843 delivering loads of sand and cement to Buzby Bros. in Westville

A pair of PRR H30 covered hoppers

WY33 the sand hog with a string empty gondolas and covered hoppers heading south for loads. Here we see it passing the Haines -Falcone dairy farms

WY27, the Millville local, has already departed and now the Salem local (WY51) follows soon after. Here it is passing the Broad Street Lake in Woodbury and shifting reefers at the icing facility in South Woodbury.

WY51 passing Broad Street Lake in Woodbury

WY51 working the icing tracks in South Woodbury