The Wood Job

We had heard that a few new converted woodchip hoppers had been freshly placed into revenue service by the Bangor and Arrostook and were anxious to get photos.

We were pretty excited to catch the MEC Wood Job returning empties from the pulp mill at Old Town to the interchange point at NMJ.

MEC GP7 565 is on the point as motive power today and we caught it as it pulled up and set the brakes at Parker's Creek signal awaiting clearance from the dispatcher. Luck is with us today as it provides a ample opportunity to run back down the road we drove in on to the pasture adjacent to the creek where we can get a better look at the rest of the train and take a few photos of the new chip hoppers.

We have a nice cut of cars to look at today and can just barely see the caboose thru the trees at the end of the train

This style car was used by the BAR from the 1960's. According to the 1984 Official Railway Equipment Register, BAR had 479 wood chip cars in service at that time, and they were numbered between 3370 and 3849.

Per Larry Goss's website, the origins of the woodchip cars are as follows:
3370-3567 1965-69 from 9000series PS1
3568-3574 1967 from 4000 ACF
3575-3694 1977 from 4000 ACF
3700-3849 1972 from 2000 Magors

We decided I should climb a tree and try and get an overhead shot and here's how it turned out.

We had run out of time and had to get home for lunch so we went up on the hill on the opposite side of the road to get another shot of the head end.

Didn't realize til we got home that over in the trees, on the edge of the pasture there was the engineer, Doug Funnie and his girlfriend Patti Mayo making out in the bushes !!

Progress Report on the BAR Woodchip Hopper Conversion Project

A quick post to show off some of the works in progress. Took a couple of snapshots of some of the woodchip hoppers I am working on this evening. Decided I would share a few of them.

The lead car in the number series is road number 3383 so numbered for my oldest daughter as this is the day of her entry into the world.















Road number 3841 is modeled after a car I happened to find a photo of.
http://users.silcon.com/~lgoss/bar3841.htm

I found a few other of photos of other chip hoppers out in cyberspace that I will more closely detail and model to the prototype.









I started these cars while on deployment in Iraq last fall. I am home now in Rincon and am in the process of finishing up the decals and the detail bits so that I may place them into revenue service. I have 8 cars painted and 7 cars decaled.

There are another 19 Front Range and Branchline 40' boxcars awaiting conversion into woodchip hoppers, 10 of which are well along in the conversion and 9 that are still in the boxes







All for now,
Mike

Been awhile since I have posted and with good reason ! I have been busy working on BAR Woodchip hoppers and re-deploying from Iraq !! But - as luck would have it I got invited to an operating session on Saturday Sept 23rd on the Clinchfield Northern, a single track layout built by my good friend Nate Stone.
There were 11 of us there to operate the Clinchfield Northern !
Needless to say, we had a great time. Nate's Clinchfield Northern represents the Clinchfield RR from Spartanburg SC to Elkhorn City and he has done an awesome job recreating several well known locations on the Clinchfield. Like Bostic Yard, The gorge, Toe River, Rocky, Caney, and others
The photo to the left is looking up the gorge at Rocky where a passing siding is located. As you can see on the skyline 'Bald Mountain' looms in the distance. Nate set up the operating session for near present day so we ran all 2nd and 3rd generation CSX power on the road. The session lasted nearly 5 hours with an hour break for lunch....
I will post a couple of videos as soon as I figure out how to do it on the blogger.

All for now,
Mike

Our Maine Central Roster


We model the B&M and the MEC during the latter part of thier independence from transition era to the acquisition by Timothy Mellon.
As such it allows me to roster a variety of motive power but for the most part the roster is centered around the mid 70's to mid 80's.
As far as diesels go, the goals for my MEC roster are to have nearly all the GP38's as well as the U18bs. I will also roster a representative sampling of the early covered wagons and 1st generation Geeps. As far as Alcos are concerned the two RS-11's are a given, and as the opportunity presents itself I will acquire a couple of Alco S switchers and early RS units.

My current roster includes Atlas HO Master Series models of all but 1 of the 13 GP38's on the MEC roster. I acquired a 6 of the 12 units while on deployment and embarked upon a small scale renumbering project. As you can see here the 'Baghdad backshop' is busy. As I have been renumbering here in Iraq I have been adding a few details as well. Such as Cab roof mounted bells and antenna. I later re-numbered the 260 shown here to r/n 256 since I noticed too late that the 260 retained the square logo after the air filter was upgraded to the paper style by the Waterville shops. So all that remains to be done on the project is to number the remaining un-numbered unit I have at home with the square heralds to r/n 260 and change one of the two r/n 258 's to 259 and I'll be one model (#253) short of the MEC 'Baker's dozen' of GP38's.

Then the real fun begins ! I will be on to the real mother of all roster projects. I will tackle the seven U23b undecs sitting in Georgia awaiting kitbashment into U18b Independence class models. I plan to use a combination of a couple of methods to kitbash the Baby Uboats that the MEC had on thier roster. Cameron Green had a very straightforward method and Mike Rose has a bit more complicated approach which involves doors and walkway sections from a C30-7. I have one started using the MR methods and will see how it comes out. Likelihood is I will opt for the simpler method Cam Green uses.

Alcos on the roster: If you have visited my fotopic photo gallery and checked out my Iraq deployment projects album you will see I have an early Atlas RS-11 here in Iraq. I am superdetailing this model as well. On the fotopic site I have a series of pics that show how I added an Alco fan and etched metal grill.

My Model RR beginnings

Growing up in Maine and mostly New Hampshire, I have always modeled the Maine Central and Boston & Maine. Early on there were very few models available that were decorated for the B&M or the MEC and coming from a single parent family I wasn't able to do much beyond a plywood tabletop outlet until I was a pre-teen. I got started in the way most do... an HO train set under the tree. I was 7 or 8 yrs old. Don't even recall what brand it was - but it was an 0-4-0 dockside switcher and a few cars. My Uncle Jake came down from Hallowell and built a train table for me in the cellar and I was on my way ! I later added to my collection. Mostly Tyco and Revell equipment I got second hand from my older brother's friend. In Exeter - the modeler's mecca was Roberge Photo shop. We were paperboys back then and me and my best friend Tim White would take the $$ we got delivering papers and trapping muskrats and beaver and use the money to buy kits and track and such.

When I was in my late teens I gave all my trains to my nephew who later gave them away so all my early stuff is but a memory. Covered wagons and a HO Pennsy SW metal switcher I got as a birthday present. As it happens - although I remained interested in trains through my high school and college years there were other interests that competed and so I was away from the hobby for a good 10 years. Always knew I would come back one day but when was hard to say.

About 3 yrs out of college I got a 'train set' for under the Christmas tree and discovered superdetailing and custom painting. I met a colleague at work who has become a life long friend who got me back into the hobby with both feet.

See a sampling of
my Iraq Deployment Modeling Projects.
Go to http://mike-sherbak.fotopic.net