BACK AT TONY'S

More work at Tony's garage. While a Corvette sits off to the side, work progresses on the new truck for the sheriff office's lake patrol. Just a few "enhancements"...

While the Corvette gets its turn in the background, other cars wait for their owners to claim them.

An old Honda Civic receives some TLC. The car may be old, but the Ford van beside it is older!

Speaking of old, the 53' Ford panel truck is still there, along with the 68' El Camino. The 70' Olds 442 is a new addition.

Tony also does motorcycles -especially 'hogs'! The one on the left is a V-Twin, the one on the right is a Road King. Unfortunately, riding season is over, so both bikes will be placed inside the storage unit behind them until spring. The PODS storage container is actually being used by Tony to store parts and equipment!

PASSING TRAINS 4

A single F40PH-2 pulls a string of MHC's (Material Handling Car) west through Hillsdale Yard. The paint scheme and a/c on the loco's roof date this photo to the early 90's.

The train only consists of seven cars. While Amtrak normally only runs passenger trains, at times it did have enough freight traffic to warrant a small special train such as this between cities. With the discontinuation of non-passenger traffic in 2001, scenes such as this dissappeared as well.

Speaking of passenger trains, here two engines pull the AP&W's business cars through town. While the lights are on in the cars, no one is onboard; the train is being moved back to its Cumberland, Md. storage location.

Another day, another long freight with another string of ethanol tank cars.

Mixed in with the ethanol tank cars are these LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) tank cars. Due to the light weight of LPG, the tank cars are much larger than the corn syrup tank cars sitting in the yard, with nearly twice the capacity -33,000 gallons vs 19,600 gallons!

THE GATEWAY CHEROKEE

As mentioned in December, the AP&W and the KCS now have a joint high-priority intermodal train, the Gateway Cherokee, that runs between Kansas City and New York City. The advertised run time is 24hrs between the two cities, or about half the normal time for low-priority freights.

Norman and Sam look up to catch the approach of the eastbound train, GC10NYC.

As the train passes through the yard, we see the normal mix of power; both AP&W and KCS are represented on the head end. A high-speed, high-priority train requires reliable, high-horsepower locomotives; the AP&W AC4400 and the KCS ES44AC's combined 8800 horsepower will keep this train on schedule, but sometimes even more power is needed.

As this picture shows, there couldn't be a more dramatic contrast between the two roads' paint schemes! Reportedly, the AP&W is looking to at least add some color to the basic 'dip job' its engines currently receive. Being paired up with a colorful KCS or a BNSF engine does not become
an AP&W locomotive!

The two engines pull their train through the yard on the way to New York City, via Philadelphia. As seen in the layout updates and here, the Hillsdale skyline is expanding and improving!

The long train stretches on through the yard and beyond with a heavy dose of double-stacked 53' domestic containers; including ones from Schneider, Crowley and JB Hunt. As seen before, the trains also haul trailers, and can often be found hauling lots of UPS equipment as well. And there is already talk of adding an additional pair of trains to handle international container traffic. And with FedEx now running on the rails, it probably won't be long before we see their equipment on these trains!

2011 UPDATE, THE TOWN (PT3)

The last update (for now)...

Last summer, this was how the far side of the layout looked. I had stapled grass strips to the back risers to try to add depth to the scene. A start, but the trains and plywood were still showing in the background.

The start of the solution- background buildings! The brick building on the left was made up from DPM modular components, it will be a tooling company. The other building is a Walthers Armstrong Electric background building kit. Neither one is finished yet, but these are the earliest views.

Another view of the two buildings. The tooling company building only has its back half up, while the Armstrong building is still missing its windows! I have, however, relocated the grass mat strips up to the very top of the foam boards the buildings are sitting on. This definitely added depth to the scene, as now it appears the buildings sit on the top of a hill (the town is called Hillsdale, after all).

Now, the tooling company building has both halves together, and the Armstrong building has its windows!

Finally, I added a small section of grass matting to the space between the buildings, placed a section of roadway behind them, and placed a row of trees beside the track at the back of the layout, with this effect. The gaping hole in the Armstrong building will be filled when I get another kit; then an extension is planned. And the tooling company building still needs more work to complete it. More buildings will probably be added, along with scenery, to hide the rear trackage from view. And the Bailey Building now has another Budweiser billboard on the roof!

2011 UPDATE, THE TOWN (PT2)

Back in August, I did an update on the alleyway behind The Pub. More changes have taken place since then...

Early last summer, the alley looked like this.

The August post showed the front set of Woodland Scenics hedgerow; this shows the second set added to the rear that I had planned to add. Now, not only is the blue foam board hidden, but the 'brush' also adds depth to the scene.

These two shots show both the two sets of hedgerows and the new building at the far end. At the time, I had only placed the rear half of the building on the layout; the exact location was (and still is) up in the air. And even the hedgerows were moved farther back later on. They are now completely behind the furniture store.

This is the back alleyway as it appears now. Behind the two sets of hedgerows is an application of ground foam "grass" to hide the blue board when seen from the front of the layout. It also makes the alleyway look good from just about any other viewing angle!