More of an observation than a question.
I almost drove off the highway today when I noticed in the Pan Am yard in Plainville Ct that they where unloading off a flat car a Piggy Packer.
In case you don’t know what one looks like: https://www.google.com/search?q=Piggy+Packer&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=e3UNUtK4MYnQ8QTtxIC4Dg&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=809
Anyone know more about Pan Am’s plans? I was already thinking of modeling the yard and adding intermodal makes it more interesting.
Derek
Don’t know but bringing up Pan Am I didn’t know it used to be the Guilford Railroad before.
ahhh its a railroad of many names lol
Thanks Chutton for the link.
Just an update, they seem to have the Piggy Packer assembled but not working. Are these things easy to get parts for? The one in Plainville is pretty well weathered so its must have been around for a while.
Just an update:
The Piggy Packer moved and seems to be working, It had picked up a container off a spline car but the Container wasn’t on a trailer. They had the container on wood blocks on the ground.
If anyone comes across more info, let me know. A google search comes up with this thread as the number 1 link so info and pics are scarce at the moment.
Derek
Keep an eye on this thread from a far-away message board, if you aren’t already.
It updates in spurts, so it’s a few days behind now. Someone was quoting up to 20 containers a month to Plainville, which doesn’t sound too impressive. Also Pam Am & the Maine DOT is still fartzing around with the track expansion in Portland, which should help once they get it laid and ready to go.
Thanks for the link C! The Plainville yard is very small so you could not get a large volume of containers in there. The yard isn’t even on the main line. Its on the branch line of a class II RR. Also, the yard isn’t really set up for truck traffic. By that I mean, it’s a RR yard and was designed years ago for other purposes. It doesn’t have a lot of road access to get trucks in with chassis to pick up any volume (however small) of container traffic.
I’m planning on modeling it for a new layout because it is small but seemed to be getting more action in recent years.
I am guessing this is the Pam Am Plainville yard in question? If so, it seems to be sited in the middle of a very spread out wye (on second glance, not really - there is no West to North connection, just a crossing).
The large straddle crane figures promiently in several images of the yard on RailPictures.Net, so I guess it’s still used. What area is the packer located?
That is the yard in question. The crane was not used until a few months ago. Then they seemed to be working on it. The Packer is just North of the crane facing west in between the two sets of tracks. This small yard is a junction where cars get dropped off and delivered to different industries. The cars come in from New Britain some are dropped off for delivery in Plainville. Some cars go over to Bristol. While the main train may go onto Waterbury. It was just recently that containers have been showing up.
I drive by there on my way to and from work so I thought it would be fun to model.