An early start this week...
My son and I used to see prototype PPLX rotary hoppers in long coal trains on the former PRR Middle Division when we would go railfanning. Lionel models of these cars were cataloged in the 2016 catalog, but did not get produced until this past year. My son went nuts over them, and I ordered him 3 sets of all the numbers (24 cars) for his high school graduation. More recently, we also pre-ordered four of the die cast dark gray PPLX hoppers that were recently released. This past weekend we built a new storage rack for them and FINALLY assembled them into a train. So here's a shot of them crossing the Tuscarora Creek bridge at Port Royal. He took three of the four double end rotary cars out of the train to be prototypical, and sprinkled the four dark gray ones in with the stainless steel cars as per the prototype. They were frequently hauled by SD-60M's, so we created a lashup of three MTH NS and CR SD-60M's to pull the train. Thought you might like to see how it looks now that we have all the cars assembled into a train.
The second image shows some of our train storage racks underneath "View" interlocking. Depending on their size and how we build them, they each hold either 30 or 60 cars, so they make efficient use of the space under the layout. We have built 15 of them over the past ten years or so.
And unlike my usual images, this week you get to see some panoramic views of the layout, including the fascia and even the floor!
With York coming up next week, that probably does it for the next two weeks! If you are attending York, have a blast. For me, it's my 43rd year of attending!
