Random Rail Shot

One Tough Locomotive-

I haven’t had time to do a write up about our narrow gauge adventure this summer.  So, in the meantime, I present a WWII Soviet armored locomotive located in Zvolen, Slovakia.  I had a chance to visit Slovakia last summer and snapped a few photos of this armored train (yes, there are more cars and more photos to come).

It’s an interesting beast and it’s located in a park adjacent to the rail yards in Zvolen.  If you’re ever in Slovakia you should check it out.  The country is rugged, a lot like New Hampshire; additionally the people and the Pivo are excellent.

Narrow Gauge Rail Shot

Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington-

More on this later, when I’m not using my phone to post, but we spent a day in Maine with the WW&F Railway and it couldn’t have gone better.

 

 

 

 

Random Rail Shot

All Is Quiet On The Northern-

I went for a run early this morning, then decided to visit White River Jct., Vermont, while I cooled off.

It’s foggy and overcast, but there’s no reason not to railfan.

 

Random Rail Shot

What is up With Spring?-

For some reason the weather has been odd here lately, of course I haven’t been here very much as of late.  Apparently winter is having a hard time letting go, it snowed in April (highly unusual here) and windchills yesterday were in the 30s.  It’s been a weird spring.

Here’s a highballing NS manifest, just to prove I’m still around.

Random Rail Shot

Something About a High Nose II –

As a bit more filler, to make up for being too busy to write anything in-depth, I offer Norfolk Southern GP38-2 5217.  I photographed this locomotive at New Haven, Indiana, back in the late 1990’s (although the exact date is beyond my recollection).

Apparently, this locomotive is still active on the NS roster (as of late February 2017) and was converted to be controlled by remote.

I have a lot going on for the next few weeks, so I’m thinking this will be my last post until early April.  Stay tuned, I should have some more B&M N scale stuff coming, as well as other eastern road related content.

Thanks for stopping by.

Random Rail Shot(s)

Things have been busy on my end, but I am working on some new content.  In the meantime, here’s this…

Something About a High Nose –
Conway Scenic 216 is a 2500HP EMD GP35 which was obtained from Pan Am in 2010.  This unit apparently started life in 1965 with Norfolk and Western as 1328 and has dual controls, so it can be operated more easily in either direction.

I see 4-axle high hoods here in the Midwest on a regular (although decreasing) basis, Norfolk Southern uses a number of more modern high hoods in various roles; they break up the parade of typical 6-axle safety cabs, increasingly taking control of North American railroads.  Like Norfolk Southern (ex Southern) GP50 7010 below, which I photographed outside of Woodburn, Indiana in 2011.  This locomotive was rebuilt in 2015 into a GP33ECO (Norfolk Southern 4723).

Operations Department

Enfield Local Part IV –

Okay, so we’ve switched Caspian Mills, now we’re ready to drop B&M 76004 off at Wayne Feeds and spot MEC 1250 at the Freight House.  Once that’s done we can wrap up this series.

B&M 76004 was already in town, we had it on the front of the locomotive when we shoved our boxcars onto the Caspian Mills spur.  B&M 76004 is dragged onto the passing siding, the locomotive is run around it, and a B&O wagon top is pulled away from the freight house and onto the main.  With the wagon top on one end of our locomotive, we then couple onto our B&M boxcar, drag it south onto the main, and shove it onto the freight house spur in front of Wayne Feeds.

 

The locomotive and B&O 381822 were then pull back onto the main and head north to retrieve the remainder of the train, which had been left in the cut by the lake.  Once coupled on, the train is then pulled into town.

The caboose is left on the passing siding, the train is cut at MEC 1250, and the locomotive and two boxcars pull onto the main.  MEC 1250 is then shoved into placed in front of the freight house dock.

Having finished with our drop-offs, it’s time to assemble the outbound consist.  B&O 381822 is coupled back onto the front of the train, the locomotive is run around to the rear of the caboose, and what will become the front of the outbound train is then shoved south onto the main, where it is coupled onto the outbound cars from Caspian Mills (the ones we left there early in the last post).

With that done, the caboose is uncoupled from the train, dragged back onto the passing siding, and parked in front of the station.  The locomotive is uncoupled and run south on the main to retrieve the outbound consist.  The train is pulled back north, past the caboose, and is then backed onto the passing siding where the caboose is hooked up to the rear.  The whole train is then backed onto the main and then pulled in front of the station where paperwork is finalized before departure.

With everything complete, the train departs north back to White River Jct.

We leave our local, on the north shore of Mascoma Lake, heading back to White River Jct. via Mascoma/East Lebanon, Lebanon, and Westboro.  Now that I’m finally done with this series, I can move onto something else in good conscience.

Random Rail Shot

End of The Line –

The post marking the End of Track of what is left of the Northern heading railroad-south out of West Lebanon NH.  The End of Track marker is across the Glen Road stone overpass, just prior to the first bridge over the Mascoma River as you head south.  This section of track has only been used occasionally for car storage over the past few years, but it does represent the end of in-use track, at least for now.

Operations Department

Enfield Local Part III –

Ahhhh, the long awaited Part III of my Enfield Local post.  I want to clarify ahead of time that I understand that I am mixing prototype operating schemes around.  Right now I run all of my trains on train orders, because it’s easier for me to keep track of operations on my small layout using one form.  While this post is titled “Enfield Local”, since I currently lack an attached yard, I am actually running this train as an extra (WJ-01), rather than an appropriate train from the timetable I presented in the last post on this subject.  Bear with me; this is all a work in progress.

So, for this operating session I used the train order shown below (they’re normally hand written, but my writing is often barely legible, so I typed this one for clarity).  Aside from the basic information, we see that train WJ-01 needs to pick up three cars and drop off five to various customers in Enfield.  I always list pick-ups, drop-offs, and assigned power for each train.  Typically, I try to use the P/U section as a guide for building the train for the return trip; however, as I said, I’m still dusting off cobwebs.

The session begins with train WJ-01 entering the layout south-bound by passing under the “Rt 4” bridge.  Whoever built this train in White River did a terrible job as the B&M coal hopper towards the middle is actually the first car needing to be dropped off.

WJ-01 then enters Enfield proper by passing through the cut which is just railroad north of the Main Street overpass, the rear of the train will be left in this cut while Caspian Mills is switched.

The front half of the train is dragged onto the passing siding across from the Enfield depot.  GP-7 1557 is run around to the rear of the shortened consist and B&M 7199 is plucked from the rear.  The locomotive and inbound coal load are now run around on the main and switched off to the Caspian Mills spur.  The outbound Rutland and Missouri Illinois empties are backed out of their spots on the siding and placed further south on the main.  B&M 7199 is then spotted on the coal dump for the mill power plant.  NOTE:  Yes, I realize I forgot to empty Rutland 10006 before pulling it from the coal dump.

With Rutland 10006 and MI 96599 parked safely to the south on the main, the locomotive is then run around the cars on the passing siding again and they are pulled north, over the Mascoma River.

This string of cars is then shoved south, through Enfield, onto the Caspian Mills spur so RUT 351 and VTR 341 can be spotted at the Caspian Mills loading dock.

That concludes switching for Caspian Mills and Part III of this series.  The next installment will feature switching for Wayne Feeds, the Enfield Freight House, and hopefully conclude my coverage of this specific subject.

Vintage N Scale B&M Rolling Stock #13

Bachmann 70 Ton 40’ Quad Hopper –

To begin with, this is my first post in well over a year, so I suspect I’ll need to knock off some cobwebs.  I’m running out of vintage B&M N scale stuff to cover, the pickings are getting slim, but I have one or two locomotives to cover and maybe four to five more freight cars before the vintage B&M stuff runs its course.  In the meantime, let’s press ahead.

By all appearances, this Bachmann car is an oddball.  I think it’s supposed to represent a 70 ton ARA quad hopper, B&M did actually own quite a few cars matching that general description, numbered 8000-8999.  Interestingly, the black paint and rectangular herald with B&M reporting marks appear to be appropriate for a late-1930s paint job on one of these cars.  It’s starting to seem like Bachmann might have nailed it… that is, until you check out the road number.  If you dropped the 56 from the front, you would indeed have a correct road number for one of these 1920-1930s built cars, and the authenticity would almost be complete, especially for an N scale car dating back as far as the 1960s or 1970s.  Bachmann just couldn’t handle coming so close to historical accuracy, and thus, missed the boat.

The build date printed on the car side is 6-24, which means June of 1924… that would have been early for the B&M cars which apparently began showing up around 1929.  Those printed build dates are typically nonsense on these early N scale cars, so I’m actually a little surprised Bachmann was so close.

I’m not sure that these cars count as rare, there are normally one or two available on the auction sites and those normally sell for around $10 USD, not too pricey.

My overall opinion is that the car is a typical, early N scale, generic freight car.  Early N scale operators probably weren’t overly picky, this car breaks up the monotony of blue dip offerings from other manufacturers.  Like most of these classic N scale items, I recommend picking one up for display and/or operation.

Historical Information:

As stated above, B&M owned around one thousand of these ARA 70 ton hoppers, numbered 8000-8999.  Boston and Maine’s fleet of these useful cars was acquired between the late 1920s and the early 1930s.  It appears some quantity was sold to DL&W in the 1950s and a few soldiered on with B&M into the 1960s.