Switcher Saturday: 2016-Dec-10

Yay!!! SWSat is on!

We are off to a great start Rich. I'm sure your kids will be happy with the chance to run the trains they haven't seen sence last year. I have a loop of KLine track with white plastic ties from a polar bear with a soda name handcar set that I plan to use under the tree this year when we get it.

Tom (MNCW) is at the Westchester Toy and Train show this weekend so I am not sure he will stop in here. As much as I would have liked to go my son is dancing this weekend in the Nutcracker Ballet on the Upper East side so I have to skip it this year. Maybe I'll make it in January.

This week I am posting pics of my Kline 0-4-0T Porter switching and pausing for a water top off under a prewar Bing water tower. 

I like that the water tank lid can be posed in the open position. It make the engine seem far more detailed than it really is.

Scratch and dent repair/re-paint this week.  Custom Atlas SW9's # 78 took a major fall, required new pilots and some touch-up.  1866 required some white paint on the hand rails.   Both are ready for work. 

Next project. An Atlas SW that pre-dated TMCC/electro-coupler/sound.  With a little luck, a TMCC upgrade. 

Hi Guys- going to finish the tree today. Here's the track plan (assuming the boss allows).

Going to run my PE Berkshire and ATSF 060 Docksider. Hope to fit the HO set inside too.

The second picture is from last year. The HO set on the inside loop is my Rivarossi NYC Hudson, 40 plus years old and still going strong.

Great photos so far! I wish I would have had a camera with me this past week. I was traveling from the school I work for to a supply house nearby when a pair of switchers belong to the Luzerne County RR was hauling a tanker and cylindrical hopper consist north into Wilkes-Barre PA. I saw a post on one of the Facebook forums with a photo of the same train in Plains when I got home from work. I have a small point and shoot that I keep telling myself that I need to keep with me, as we are surrounded by trains.

Don

A few pictures of 1 to 1 scale switching in Arkansas City, Arkansas a few weeks ago.

Happy Switcher Saturday from Finland. MILW RS1 #1677 switching at Morrison.

Ok one more. I took the kids to see Santa at Macy's and got some pics of the TW Trainworx layout there in Santaland. They were mostly running Lionel  starter set 0-8-0s so that qualifies these for SWSat. 

Sad fate of an FL9A small work crew out on the mainline. Putting the engine away. My daughter was obsessed with one of the windows where you could play pinball. 

Have a great weekend guys. there was actually a Pyle headlight on the engine outside

CBS072 posted:

A few pictures of 1 to 1 scale switching in Arkansas City, Arkansas a few weeks ago.

I think Keith meant to type "Arkansas City, Kansas".  Least ways, that's where it was last time I was through there. 

Factoid:

The state "Arkansas" is pronounced "ARK in saw".  However, "Arkansas City" is pronounced "ar KAN zus" City.  Same with the river "Arkansas River": "ar KAN zus" River.

Weird... but it is what it is.

Hello Switcher Saturday friends!!   We all look so much forward to this thread each week!  Thanks Rich for always getting up so early each Saturday and starting this thread along with your morning coffee!!!  AND thanks to all of you guys ( and hopefully one day some gals too ) who contribute your wonderful photos and historical information each week!!  I learn so much from ALL of you. 

Btw - Rich, I'm still keeping my eye peeled for a Baltimore & Annapolis SW 9 for you!

Hear are some photos of my newest addition to the Free State Junction Railway's locomotive fleet.  New to me ( via e bay ) is this pre-owned Patapsco and Back Rivers  Baldwin VO1000 switcher made by MTH.    It is the first VO 1000 I've ever owned and I'm thrilled!!!   With this locomotive the Free State Junction Railway locomotive roster is now complete, at least road name wise

The FSJR is comprised of Maryland's 4 class ones ( B&O, Pennsy, Western Maryland, and N&W ) and 4 short lines ( Baltimore & Annapolis, Canton, Maryland & Pennsylvania, and Patapsco & Back Rivers ) of the late 1940 - 1950's. Until this past Thursday I had locomotives for all these railroads except P&BR.  For many years I've owned two P&BR gondolas but no loco.  I've kicked my butt many times for not purchasing this loco when MTH first came out with it years ago..... but I do remember that the board of directors said no due to financial constraints at the time.

The Patapsco and Back Rivers was the railroad that switched the huge Bethlehem Steel plant in the Sparrows Point area of Baltimore and was one of several railroads owned by Bethlehem Steel Corp.  If my memory serves me correct, this railroad boasted around 80 miles of rail if counting all the yard tracks.  There is a P&BR locomotive at the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore .... and it very well may be the prototype of the one I just purchased.  I'll be taking a trip there in the next couple of weeks to see all the Christmas trains so I'll be sure to check it out.

 I've searched for years for a P&BR loco to no avail ,until last week when I found this one on e bay.  Her livery is not eye catching nor is her hearald,  and she won't win a beauty contest but, at the present, in the eyes of  this beholder she's "Queen of the fleet"!!!    Here's some pics of the P&BR doing what she does best ...... switching!!!  Click on bottom photos for captions.  Have a wonderful week everyone!!!!

BAR and TRUMPMAN, great pics............Paul

paul 2 posted:

BAR and TRUMPMAN, great pics............Paul

Paul: Thank you very much.

-Johan

Sunset Models SD9 Road Switcher, Great Northern Paint.  There are others.

paul 2 posted:

BAR and TRUMPMAN, great pics............Paul

Thanks Paul!

I was messing with the bottom of our tree today to make room for a small loop and my wife asked what I was doing. I told her I was going to put some sort of train under the tree even if I had to use an old junky looking set that I had picked up somewhere. It was then she sighed and said :just wait a minute, I was saving this for Christmas but..." and gave me a big brown box with the word Lionel on it and inside I found a set that I have been meaning to get for under my tree for awhile now.

Hey All, Great pictures so far!  I hope everyone is having a good a day as I am.  Our tree is up but not yet decorated, that's OK, but my little helper (10 yrs old now) wasn't much help!

I ran out of the house for a bit and sure enough found a Lionel RTR switcher running around a nice Holiday layout at the local fancy garden center!  (Homestead Gardens, Severna Park Maryland).

My new engine

Nice pics. My new Genset. (Seller ad Pics)

Happy Switcher Saturday everyone! As Andy mentioned I had a train show that kept me and my wife busy today. It was a good show, we sold some books, sone paper items and I came home with another PRR cabin car. Hey, for $5 I could not pass it up.

Then I got home to watch a great Army-Navy game. I grew up pro-Army as my Dad was a Master Sargeant in the Army... he got out after approximately 40 years between the Army and National Guard. Thank you all for your service if you have ever served or for your parent's service if he/she ever did. 

I get questions every now and then if the New York Central ever had slope-back tenders. Here is a rather neat image of a New York Central System locomotive operating in Pennsylvania (if the cation is accurate), so we can say the system had them...I have some very dark early 1900's stereo-view photos of similiar looking locomotives working on the West Side Line. So, as far as I am concerned, yes they had them. Not sure how long they lasted since photos of them seem pretty scarce. 

Tom

gotta love those $5 Cabin Cars Tom, I got one last show I was at.

Posted this elsewhere, 1615 moving my recently arrived 259E into the shed.

 My original engine  running on this year Christmas layout