Thanks for starting off this SWSAT Patrick.
The NWS EARLE BEEP Switcher has been dispatched to pick up the USCG 3731 Boxcar that was dropped at the Team track 5 days late and cut it into the Veterans Salute train before it leaves town.

My steam switcher for this Saturday is Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal #15, an 0-6-0T by Lionel (2032020) – and the smallest model steam engine in my collection. Lionel lists its length as 8.5 inches.

The apparent prototype for Lionel’s model is a 1910 Alco 0-6-0T industrial steam switcher shown in a drawing on page 32 of Model Railroader Cyclopedia – Volume 1 – Steam Locomotives, by Linn H. Westcott. It gives a length of about 32 feet (8 inches in 1:48 O scale) over coupler faces with 44-inch driving-wheel diameter.

Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal was a waterfront railroad that handled freight cars floated on barges across New York harbor from New Jersey to Brooklyn. The railroad had 11 miles of track at its peak and ran steam locomotives until 1963. It was acquired by the New York Cross Harbor Railroad in 1983.

Also running on my 12’-by-8’ layout this week (not a switcher) is New York Central 4-6-0 #1244, a Lionel ten wheeler (2431660) and a recent acquisition. Lionel has been making versions of this NYC prototype since at least 2002 and they did a great job on this one. It’s my 5th Lionel ten-wheeler.

BEDT #15 ran on the layout’s O-36 inner loop and NYC #1244 ran on the O-54 middle loop. As shown on the videos, the O-36 loop runs through a narrow rock cut. BEDT #15 is heading-up a short freight train with two NYC wood cabooses and NYC #1244 is trailed by two unlettered wood-sided coaches – some of my favorite railroad cars – all by MTH.

#1244 was built by Alco in November 1907 and began service on the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad as Class F-2e #2118. It was reclassified to NYC Class F-12e and renumbered #831 when superheated in February 1916. Weight was 208,000 pounds with 31,900 pounds tractive effort at steam pressure 200 pounds-per-square-inch with 69-inch driving wheels. It was renumbered to #1244 in 1948 and retired in February 1952.

MELGAR

Happy SwSat, fellow rail fans!  Patrick, no apologies needed for going to the archives, your posts are always entertaining.  It’s nice to have the archives in reserve, isn’t it?  I think I’ll do the same thing myself today!

l picked up my MTH Boston & Maine EMD SW9 at the W Springfield train show three years ago for only $50.00.  It’s Mike’s economy model circa 2000, equipped with just a horn sounding like a buzzer, but runs great and is finished well like a typical MTH engine.

Does anyone know the difference between EMD’s SW and NW series switchers?  They look the same to me.

John

@Steam Crazy posted:

Happy SwSat, fellow rail fans!  Patrick, no apologies needed for going to the archives, your posts are always entertaining.  It’s nice to have the archives in reserve, isn’t it?  I think I’ll do the same thing myself today!

l picked up my MTH Boston & Maine EMD SW9 at the W Springfield train show three years ago for only $50.00.  It’s Mike’s economy model circa 2000, equipped with just a horn sounding like a buzzer, but runs great and is finished well like a typical MTH engine.

Does anyone know the difference between EMD’s SW and NW series switchers?  They look the same to me.

John

John- A quick google search yielded this:

The EMD SW and NW engines were used in Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC) switcher locomotives, which were distinguished by their engine size and frame type:

• N

  The "N" designation originally stood for 900 horsepower, but later came to refer to larger engine models. The NW2 was the successor to the SW1, and had a longer hood to house its larger 12-cylinder diesel engine. The "W" in NW stands for "welded frame".
  
• C

  The "C" designation stood for cast frame locomotives.
  
• W

  The "W" designation stood for welded frame locomotives. EMC standardized on welded frames after 1939.

• SW1000

  A taller switcher that was mostly produced for railroads because it exceeded the clearances at many industrial facilities. The SW1001 was a shorter version of the SW1000 with better clearance.
  
• SW900E

  A rebuilt EMD SW900 diesel locomotive with a 1,200 horsepower engine and a new electrical system.

Happy SwSat everyone.  Today, GP38-2 CN/GTW is moving a mixed freight.  This Lionel engine is the only road switcher I have.

Have a great day!

Here is my RMT Bang switcher on another fine Switcher Saturday -

After a couple of quick repairs, the Strasburg 8618 is ready for another day. With the milder temperatures, passengers can enjoy a ride on an open air car.

Gene

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

Happy SWSat!

Going to go in the critter direction this week.
I've made several trips to Trainland recently to pick up some pre-orders that came in. All RMT cars, ore cars, and refers. I have my orders for store pick up to save the shipping fee, and Trainland is 10 minutes away from me.
Although I believe that strategy has backfired.

On my first trip I saw several MTH bump-n-go trolleys in the case. First trip was a look, second was a buy! She's a nicely done model, very light weight though so I added 5oz to it which made a big difference in the bumper operations. I'm contemplating adding a shelf trolley line above my layout so.....

The Babylon Rail Road was a horsecar line in Babylon Village, New York, later converted to a trolley line. It was opened in 1871 and ceased operations in 1920.

The line's main purpose was to provide transportation between the Long Island Rail Road station at the north end of the village center, to ferries for Jones Beach and Fire Island destinations. In 1910 Babylon Railroad established a second line to Amityville Station.^[1] They also planned a connection to the South Shore Traction Company (later Suffolk Traction Company) in Sayville, New York that was never built.^[2] By 1918, the original line of the Babylon railroad ceased to operate, and the Babylon-Amityville Line was terminated two years later. (WIKI)

The ends of the car are marked Babylon on one side and Amityville on the other.

And to keep the Switcher in SWSat, here's PRR # 94 pulling the growing fleet of ore cars.

Have a great weekend !

Bob

Today’s post is my son’s newest addition to the layout.  It’s the recently released Lionel road switcher GP9 and GP9B.  Had an earlier Legacy version, but upgraded to this version.  Improved details and the superbass adds some significant sounds.

  Bob, thanks for the reply on the SW/NW switchers!  I Googled it too, but didn’t come up with the specific info you did.  Now I know “the rest of the story”.

John

MTH B&M 44 tonner pulls 8 Atlas-O beer reefers past waiting trains.

All the traction tires have been removed to assure AC ground since the unpowered wheels do not provide reliable ground contact. As shown, the engine has plenty of power without the tires and operates smoothly without stalling.

@RSJB18 posted:

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

Happy SWSat!

Going to go in the critter direction this week.
I've made several trips to Trainland recently to pick up some pre-orders that came in. All RMT cars, ore cars, and refers. I have my orders for store pick up to save the shipping fee, and Trainland is 10 minutes away from me.
Although I believe that strategy has backfired.

On my first trip I saw several MTH bump-n-go trolleys in the case. First trip was a look, second was a buy! She's a nicely done model, very light weight though so I added 5oz to it which made a big difference in the bumper operations. I'm contemplating adding a shelf trolley line above my layout so.....

The Babylon Rail Road was a horsecar line in Babylon Village, New York, later converted to a trolley line. It was opened in 1871 and ceased operations in 1920.

The line's main purpose was to provide transportation between the Long Island Rail Road station at the north end of the village center, to ferries for Jones Beach and Fire Island destinations. In 1910 Babylon Railroad established a second line to Amityville Station.^[1] They also planned a connection to the South Shore Traction Company (later Suffolk Traction Company) in Sayville, New York that was never built.^[2] By 1918, the original line of the Babylon railroad ceased to operate, and the Babylon-Amityville Line was terminated two years later. (WIKI)

The ends of the car are marked Babylon on one side and Amityville on the other.

And to keep the Switcher in SWSat, here's PRR # 94 pulling the growing fleet of ore cars.

Have a great weekend !

Bob

Thanks for the history of the Long Island trolleys Bob. Being a Brooklyn boy I wasn’t aware of the trolley action on the other end or middle of the Island.

Couple Boston & Maine GP-9s working on Switcher Saturday

What I like about this forum thread is the large amount of whimsy you guys’ photograph.  Have a great day everyone.

One thing about switcher's, they do lots of jobs.  Here is the Hornby 101 tank switcher (this one is actually electric, repowered with a Marx motor) doing some branch line service.  The first is a mixed train, in farm country with one coach and a livestock car delivering some new calves to a farm down the line and delivering a family to Grandma's for Thanksgiving.

OH OH...here is the same loco, pressed into passenger service, the Thanksgiving rush has over crowded all the trains.  So some lucky folks ("lucky" may be in the minds of the beholder) get to take this old steam switcher from the main line depot on down the branch to their small town destination.  She huffs, puffs, and throws all sorts of black smoke but she is reliable and will get everyone there for turkey!!  The neat thing for the kids is that "Old John" the engineer on that old switcher just LOVES to blow the whistle so everyone has a smile on their face when they arrive.

Best Wishes, Don

Here's a couple of my RMT Beeps at work, the inside track has the USCG Beep hauling the RMT USCG freight cars. The Outside main has my Bashed Beep center cab hauling some Menard's Sinclair tank cars.

Both units have TMCC and ERR Beep sound commanders.

The videos below show an MTH PS3 Boston & Maine S-2 diesel switcher hauling New England boxcars and a Boston & Maine caboose:

@Darrell  Did you ever post how you bashed that center cab Beep?

I followed a post from @Old Goat from May of 2009. I would link to it but can not find it using search.

@Darrell I had trouble using the search when putting the the "posted by" name. Even putting the link in below seemed to be a problem.

I did find this, but not sure if this is what you were looking for.

https://ogrforum.com/topic/2415514336826523

Tom

No, that's not it unfortunately. I did save it as a PDF file though...

Thanks for starting SWSAT of right once again, Patrick! For this week's SWSAT Sunday Supplement, I'm joining the BEEPers by debuting "Rjship1," my PRR BEEP upgraded with Lionel's Lionchief/Flyerchief GP7 board:

I've named her "Rjship1" in recognition of all the help given to me on this 1st upgrade project by Bob @RSJB18. She's running under conventional control above, but she can also operate using the LionChief app.

The board has control, lighting and sound on the same board, so everything fits well on the chassis and under the BEEP shell:

The Soundtraxx 810153 speaker with 810110 "full" acoustic suspension enclosure mounted on the chassis under the short hood end gives great sound and keeps everything but lighting on the chassis. All lighting uses Evan Designs universal 7-19V solid and flashing "bulb" LED kits. The board is mounted to the chassis using 3M Dual Lock so it can be removed for mechanical component maintenance. The only feature I am not yet using is electrocouplers due to the coupler mount reinforcements I added to avoid coupler mount breakage.

@Bill Swatos posted:

Thanks for starting SWSAT of right once again, Patrick! For this week's SWSAT Sunday Supplement, I'm joining the BEEPers by debuting "Rjship1," my PRR BEEP upgraded with Lionel's Lionchief/Flyerchief GP7 board:

I've named her "Rjship1" in recognition of all the help given to me on this 1st upgrade project by Bob @RSJB18. She's running under conventional control above, but she can also operate using the LionChief app.

The board has control, lighting and sound on the same board, so everything fits well on the chassis and under the BEEP shell:

The Soundtraxx 810153 speaker with 810110 "full" acoustic suspension enclosure mounted on the chassis under the short hood end gives great sound and keeps everything but lighting on the chassis. All lighting uses Evan Designs universal 7-19V solid and flashing "bulb" LED kits. The board is mounted to the chassis using 3M Dual Lock so it can be removed for mechanical component maintenance. The only feature I am not yet using is electrocouplers due to the coupler mount reinforcements I added to avoid coupler mount breakage.

She looks and sound great Bill. Happy to pay it forward......

Now if I can find time to finish mine.......

Bob