A Post? A REAL Post?

OMG, yes, this blog IS still alive, even if its not active! So today boys and girls, I want to share with you the LVHTRy's newest member of the over-flowing roster, which was put together and GREATLY enhanced by my good friend Joe Binish of New Hope, Minnesota.

Why yes, yes I do.......

Please welcome the ALCo HH300 # 102 to the roster!!!

Oh, you want to see the MODEL! OK, OK, I guess so......

Well, what IT is, is a pioneering switcher built as a test bed in 1931 that led to the development of the more widely known HH600 and 660 models. The LV had the first two ever built out of a total of 11 ever built. Numbers 102 and 103 served the LV faithfully in the New York Harbor area until 1953. As was tradition at the time, these were just steam loco black with white lettering, though 102 did receive the classic "Cornell Red with black stripes" paint job before being retired.

So the model itself was produced originally by Bethlehem Car Works back around 2022'ish and I picked mine up at the giant Springfield "Big E" train show, and there it sat, on my shelf for three years until Joe was kind enough to take on the project for me.

This is not Joe's handiwork, this is an "as built" model by an unknown modeler, on White Rose Hobbies web site (the store that took over Bethlehem Car Works product line in 2024) -https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/products/bethlehem-car-works-sparrows-point-sp-106-ho-scale-alco-300hp-diesel-kit

Even though the website says sold out, I spoke with the owner who said there might be more hiding in the back closet at the store, and they may re-release it again in the future. Check out White Rose Hobbies if you're ever in the York PA area, or at https://www.whiterosehobbies.com/.

I was there last year, and it is one HECK of a store, a hobby store that I wish there were more of here in New Jersey, and what all hobby store aspire to be!

Now, for Joe's handiwork!......

Joe added a lot more finer details than can be seen here, so if you want to see more of the build, please ask and I'll be happy to post more pics. The frame and drive are a Bachmann Spectrum 44 tonner, for those of you who are curious.

Well, Joe is afraid (and rightfully so) that no matter HOW well he repacks it to ship it back to NJ, when I go out to visit him in April, I'll bring it (carefully) home on the airplane, EVEN THOUGH he keeps telling me that he has become no enamored with it that he keeps threatening to hold it hostage if I don't call it things like "cutie", when I and my friend Dave Abeles know DAMN well that its a "schiddy"!

Hey, it could have been another "I ripped up this track" or "I think I'm going to rip the layout down and model the CNJ's High Bridge Branch (again)" post......But hey, thanks for stopping by, and hopefully reading this far!

~Ralph

A Lucky Find.....

 While not an update on the "march to staging", this is one that I wanted to share that answered a lot of questions for me.

Recently on Facebook (and about the only redeeming thing ABOUT Facebook) is that a woman who joined one of the groups I am a member of, was going thru her father's collection (he was an ex-employee) and had been sharing some reports and other such things with the group. She posted pieces of a November 1943 Director's Special that seemed very interesting, and she was more than happy to make scans of it! So less than a week later, I receive 79 scanned pages of this report, and low and behold, it had some VERY enlightening info that is specific to my layout! 

In case you aren't aware, my LV industrial branch on the layout is (was) called the "Edgewater Branch", and it served, in particular, a milk unloading platform (it's main reason for being), a large coal trestle, and a few other little industries. Also, carloading car counts between the various NY railroads via carfloats are mentioned, and even though I am modeling 1951, and this was during WW2, it's still an interesting insight, to say the least. In all my research on this piece of the railroad for the last twenty years, I've yet to see any of these details that I quite frankly, feel are SO important to prototypical operation. 

So, without any more ado, here are the two pages that pertain to my layout that I am so excited to share with all of you (I would suggest saving them to your computer or other such imaging software to read, as they are too small to read in the blog because of the way they were sent to me)......

I hope that for any of you out there still reading this, that you are able to come into such detailed info for your own particular prototype, because it's these little details that make prototype operations so much more enjoyable, at least for me!

~ Ralph

Light At The End Of The Two Year Tunnel

 I'll let the pictures do the talking......More to come soon

A Little Track Work......

Just to prove that I am actually accomplishing things, here's what five years get's you down on the waterfront.....

Circa 2015

Circa 2020

Nothing ground breaking, but if I can ever get a real track plan drawn up (any takers?), what I changed in the second photo allows for better train/car movements, though I wish I could have added one more set of crossovers....oh well, we can't fit everything!

Well, actually, yes, I have been. The wiring is mostly done (special thanks to friends Dave Abeles for the loan of a resistance soldering station, and Tom Schmieder for a short circuit detector, which is a good thing I haven't had any of, because I still can't find where I put it!), and now all that needs laying is my stylized version of Phillips St. Interlocking (where the LV crossed the CNJ, just west of the riverfront yards) which leads into staging, and of course, staging itself.  But that'll have to wait until later in 2021 after I return from Virginia for training for a new job. So, stay tuned and stay safe, 2021 is going to have some trains running for a full op session for the first time since 2014!

~ Ralph

End Of Week, Just For Fun, No Other Reason Than "Because I Don't Feel Like Working" Post

So, I stumbled upon this blog today while deciding to "take a break"....Yeah, break, that's it.....

http://position-light.blogspot.com/

Having always though signals are neat (because, who DOESN'T think that?!?), ESPECIALLY semaphores, and also because my friend Dave Abeles' has signals galore all over the place on his 

Conrail Onondaga Cutoff layout - https://onondagacutoff.blogspot.com/, so I kinda thought that I should take some time to learn about them a little better.....

                                                               Yeah, Dave has a LOT of signals.....

So I thought to myself, "Self, share this with your faithful readers today, because like said, "signals are neat"!" And 'cause ya know, I'm nice like that.......

So, yeah, I guess I have to go back to work now.....I'm off to the Bridgeview B&B in Marysville, Pennsylvania this weekend, so maybe I'll be back next week with some neat pictures to share!

~Ralph

Un-Doing the Re-Doing of the Re-Do of The Branch...

So, because at least now that I know what I'm doing with the tracks in my West Yard, but also am fixated on attacking my New Jersey Turnpike bridge "problem"/backdrop treatment (please visit my FB group for info on that), I ALSO decided to revisit my previously re-built Edgewater Branch - 

Ya see, I recently bought and read the thought-provoking book by Lance Mindheim, titled "Model Railroading As Art" (which is available from Amazon by clicking on the title), and realized that, among the MANY "design principles" he puts forth, that I didn't have enough of what he calls "negative space". I knew that upon my rebuild of the branch, that I OVER did things - I added WAY too much track that didn't exist, not because I needed to, but because "I could", and because it "looked cool"..... This was a simple branch, built alongside the Morris Canal, as evidenced here - 

And I really wanted to keep that scenic element in place, even though by the 1950's, the ditch that was the canal, was long gone. But ever since the very first version of this layout in my parent's house in the 1990's, I wanted to have a bit of an abandoned canal prism (I have a slight Morris Canal obsession, unrelated to the railroad), and with all this track, there was no room whatsoever to model that. But in reality, it was just way too much track to have! I had installed three passing sidings, and they weren't separated by a few cars lengths, mind you, but by no more than one turnout each! Not only would a real railroad probably not do that (it would have been double tracked with maybe a crossover mid way to divide the long siding instead), but it just wasn't like that in the real world, EVER! (and I have the Val Map of the branch to prove it!). Henceforth, the need for "negative space"....

So, today, instead of finishing other track projects that I've already started, I ripped up my branch and "de-industrialized" it -

Well, in actuality, I didn't loose any industries, I just "rationalized" the physical plant to not only be less cluttered, but simple and rather forlorn, just like the real thing probably was by the 1950's. Now, if the local has need of running around cars, it has to do it in the yard before it runs down the branch, or go all the way to the end of the branch to run around its cars. Crews will need to plan things out, rather than just grab everything at one time and go and have the luxury of a mid-branch runaround. I think it's much more realistic, and it certainly more realistic to essence of the real branch, which didn't have nearly as many industries on it in 1950 as I decided to model it (three of the six currently on the branch). One last thing I DID add that I thought would be helpful (and to be honest, it was an attempt to get another industry in), was to add what is essentially a switching lead/team track/"for later" track - 

It's that left hand stub track seen in the distance above, just past the pole,and adjacent to the Monmouth St Team Track "module".

In the above company map, said track is labeled "West End Coal Yard" and appears to be double-ended siding (which is why I did what I did to begin with), but like I said, it was just TOO MUCH TRACK after everything was said and done! I estimate this branch to have been about 2-3 miles in length, and seeing as that I have only about 12 feet to play with, allowances had to be made.

In the end, this was all easy to pick up and un-do, as no track feeders have been re-installed yet, and just a few pins to pull out that were holding all the track in place. I suppose that I'll be spending some nights this week in the basement as I find the time, putting it all back together......

So, hopefully I will be able to stay focused and make some more leaps of progress before the bank account stops any further Westbound expansion!

Until next time,

~Ralph

Not "one and done" by a long shot.....

I have been busy posting updates elsewhere, and by "elsewhere" I mean my Facebook page, so if you're a "Facebook'er", please "click and join", as I tend to post material that I don't post here, especially when I'm looking for some "immediate community consensus" on something. I recently asked for some public opinion related to my last post here about the West Yard track layout, and it generated some helpful content, so please stop by and request to join (please mention you saw this post, and I'll add you ASAP) as it is a private group. If I'm working on something "in the moment", I tend to post there first.....

Anyway, I'll make this update fast and furious, unlike all my other updates tend to be......I have slowed down on progress a little since St. Patrick's Day, other than to buy the new foam insulation board for the redone fiddle staging yard -

It went from this - 

To This - 

So instead of being a Frankenstein of four different pieces and now, only one level instead of two, it's a matter of rebuilding the "Main Line" into staging which means buying more turnouts, and that ISN'T in the budget right now, not to mention that's a blog update in and of itself......

Bottom line, it's approximately 10 feet long, 7 tracks wide, and if my rough measurements are right, about 10 cars per track capacity. While I plan on doubling a train while building or receiving a train (each Main Line track, and the National Docks Branch has a pair of staging tracks allotted to it) I never planned on running 20 car transfers into, and off of, the layout, though maybe once the new ops plan is in place (yes Dave Abeles, that means getting Jack "O.C." Trabachino down here!), we may be running bigger transfers. I still have some details to rough out (engine escape turnouts at the end of each track, engine storage tracks off one track), but we'll get to that in due time.....

Right now, I have other fish to fry in the previous "work locations" on the layout that need fine tuning, and also re-wiring (BORING!!!). But we'll get there, and I'll make sure everyone is along for the ride.

So yeah, that's it (for now)! 

See you soon!

~Ralph