LAYOUT RENEWAL PT3

More "urban renewal"...

Several buildings have been put back in their old locations on Market St., across from the new location of the hotel, as seen in the foreground.

Another look down the street; note the mis-match between the plastic street and the old cardboard.

Main Street also has a new look, with two of the buildings from Market Street being re-located.

 The two buildings with blue fronts are (for now) on Main St.

Buildings have been swapped around as I study the look. Ultimately, the two buildings returned to Market St. -where they belong.

The turmoil along County Lane and the yard; next week, a new look for the main road into town!

LAYOUT RENEWAL PT2

Last week saw the heart of Hillsdale dismantled. This week the renewal...

Downtown before...

Downtown after. The supermarket and the hotel have swapped places -and streets. Also, after replacing the cardboard street with the plastic Walther's Street System,  County Lane no longer has a bulge in the middle of the street!

The hotel's new location can be seen in the back. Swapping the two buildings was done to accommodate the width of the Street System verses the old cardboard previously used on Market St.
Now the block has a "stepped" appearance to it from left to right!

Market Street under construction. Eventually, the Walther's Street System will be used here as well; note the abrupt change between the edge of the Street System at the intersection and the cardboard used for the rest of the street.

The new location of the hotel. If you look closely, you can see that there's a business located on the front side; this was hard to see in the old location. Note the other side of the street is still bare; this, of course, will change!
More street work and building placement next week!

LAYOUT RENEWAL, PT1

Back in spring, I re-did much of the layout. Here's what I did...

The entire block along Market Street has been removed, and the cardboard intersection is being replaced with a plastic Walthers Street System one. In fact, more than the intersection will be re-done; note the difference in street width between the Street System and the cardboard.

The upheaval is evident in this photo. Freight cars share the tracks with autos, sidewalks and buildings!

Main Street also has buildings -in the street!

These two buildings will return to the corner of County Lane and Market Street, but other buildings will be re-located as work progresses.

This was the "tear-down" phase. Next comes the "re-build" phase!

LAST LOOK...

The string of tank cars from HL06 has been unloaded, and is now sitting in Hillsdale Yard waiting to return west via Pittsburgh.

Other cars have joined the tank cars, including test car Sewell's Point and engineering caboose 4345. Both are in the AP&W's Engineering Blue.

Another company service car, this time an old PS-2 covered hopper in sand service.

The opposite end of the yard has more MOW equipment, scrap steel, and two tracks of cars for the paper mill in Dale City.

Kaolin tank cars, boxcars, and loaded woodchip cars are lined up as HL06 rolls past in the distance.

Close-ups of the cars, with a pair of engines in the background. They will be pulling GPL10 to Dale City later on in the day.

A refrigerated Swift Transportation semi rolls across the bridge as DCL9 passes underneath. The semi may make the final delivery, but each of those big reefer cars has three times as much capacity!

Traffic passes through the intersection of Market Street and County Lane. This look is now gone!
Earlier this year, I redid much of the layout, including most of the town. I also replaced most of the roads, including this intersection. The next several posts will detail the changes that were made.
A new era has once again begun in Hillsdale!

HL06

The "borrowed" (leased) Canadian National SD40-2 is back in town...

CN 5289 rounds the curve with HL06; the local for the area heating oil distributor. A covered hopper provides the head-end buffer protection behind the engine.

Rolling past loaded gons of steel and pipes, the short tank train passes through Hillsdale Yard with  eight loads of its own.

And "Tank-Train" it is! More commonly seen on the West Coast, the tank cars are special GATX equipment, designed for rapid loading and unloading of an entire string of cars. An inert gas is piped into one end of the string, and the contents of the cars are pushed out the other end via the connecting hoses.

The interconnecting hose between two of the cars. Being able to load/unload the entire string at one time, instead of just one car at a time, is the big advantage of these cars. Which is why the oil distributor has set up its operations to make good use of said ability!

On the other end of the train is the caboose, staying with the engine as they go back and forth during the day. No longer a rolling hotel, it still provides the required rear-end protection for the train.

And one of the companies that get oil  from the distributor? Snake Oil! Fall is on the way, and early customers are taking advantage of the low pre-season prices to stock up for what is expected to be another rough winter. HL06 normally runs from late August through late March on a weekly basis, maybe twice more in April if the weather stays cold, then disappears for the summer. While the train delivers 184,000 gal of heating oil at a time, it goes fast when Snake Oil and the other  oil companies in southwest Pennsylvania start filling up the oil tanks of homeowners looking to stay warm on cold, snowy nights during polar vortexes!.