Switching the chemical plant….

 

A trip down along the Ohio River the other night turned out to be fruitful as we caught the PC local out of Riverside yard switching out Monsanto Chemical. Below are photos we snapped of the action !

Recent action…..

 

Recent action on the Cincinnati terminal sub found our usual friend GP7 5628 working the area, today with an ex-PRR cabin. We first caught him switching out Paxton-Sullivan scrapyard as seen below:

We then caught the crew pulling an empty reefer from Stephen’s and loaded boxcar from Armitage Furniture:

Before that move however, the crew moved the ex-Pennsy cabin over to the scrapyard siding out of the way:

The crew then moved a loaded UPFE reefer into Stephen’s Distributors seen here:

Next up came a loaded Cotton Belt boxcar for Armitage:

Finally, as night was falling with the street lights coming on, the crew moved a TASD boxcar to the team track:

As night fell we ran out of time and had to call it a day. Next time, we turn out to see the local switching out the chemical plant after dark

Sunrise in Cincinnati….

 

As the sun peeks over the hills of Cincinnati it’s about the only quiet time in this industrial area west of downtown….

Useful tools….

 

Here are two useful tools I use on the layout. The above timetable includes the Cincinnati terminal, so it’s a great help. The other tool is this freelanced version of a PC waybill that simulates what Ted Pamperin uses or used on his C&O layout. This was actually put together for my old layout on excel by my late wife, which I then typed the information on these, using available timetables, track charts, and the OPSIG industry database on their website. Below is a blank waybill:

Ivorydale or Riverside….?

 

So, on my layout I’ve kind of freelanced it a bit, with an area supposedly representative of the industrial area around the huge Proctor and Gamble plant in the Cincinnati suburb of St. Bernard, with the local job coming out of Ivorydale yard next to the plant. My layout could also represent the area out along the Ohio River west of downtown Cincinnati, another industrial area where the B&O and PC also ran alongside each other. The chemical plant on my layout could represent Monsanto which was a fairly good sized complex, with the local job coming out of Riverside yard pictured above in this Mike Leach photo. I’m leaning towards the area out along the river in a suburb known as Sedamsville. Btw, this suburb is where the Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose grew up! I also had a cousin that lived about two blocks from Riverside yard, another place I would hang out.

Recent action…..

 

Recently we caught PC 5628 working the area industries, which included Stephen’s Grocery Distributors, the team track, Paxton-Sullivan scrapyard, and Armitage Furniture. The crew pulled an empty N&W insulated boxcar out of Stephen’s plus a Seattle and North Coast boxcar out of Armitage Furniture and replaced these with an empty Railbox car at Armitage plus a loaded refrigerator car at Stephen’s. The crew also then spotted an L&N waffle sided boxcar at the team track:

Finally, we caught the crew switching out the scrapyard with an Illinois Terminal gondola plus a Southern gondola as seen below:

Wires…..!

Something I’ve wanted to do for awhile is string power lines along these well detailed utility poles. I’ve had an excellent product that I used on my previous layout which is called E-Z line which comes in multiple colors. I close green as a suggestion from somewhere I garnered from because of the better visibility factor. Not sure if that was really the case as the green line is basically hard to see, however power lines are now installed across the back of the layout. I am debating whether to string these across the poles along the front of the layout due to multiple switches I need to access plus uncoupling multiple cars  with the power lines possibly being in the way and getting snapped or snagged! The stringing of these lines is pretty tedious work, but it does add to the realism for sure! Below is another photo showing the not so visible lines!

Another light…..!

 

I have installed another pole light inside the chemical complex as shown above. I still think I need some more lighting in there, however everything is in close quarters so not sure how I’d get a drill in these areas. I could perhaps put several of the simple LED lights inside the two buildings, but would need another power supply. Here below now is an overview of the layout lit up!

Moving the derail….

 

Yesterday I made a slight adjustment to the scrapyard siding by moving the derail closer to the main so as to get a second gondola into the siding, and I felt the derail was too far down the siding originally.