Received another of his real nice photo contributions from Brian Smith this week, in the form of this view of BISX gondola 30915 (Brandenburg Industrial Service Co.). Brian asked if I'd ever seen one of these myself, but the answer is "no". Never seen a model of one either for that matter. Too bad, because one sure would be interesting at the metal recycler yard on the JSSX.
And on the layout, I had been having quite a bit of trouble with one track switch (PECO, code 83) at the GTW yard...six-axle engines, most notably the GT SD38, were tending to short out the whole layout as they ran through the switch. I finally got tired of that, so I removed and replaced the switch with a new one.
The switch is out obviously, and the rail joiners are in place.
Switch is in place, and I taped over any contact points before doing any painting. I guess that I probably should have done the painting at the workbench first, but the truth is that I never even thought of it at the time.
The switch is in place, ties and rail are painted, ballast is in, and best of all...it works! I'll go over it again with a bit more paint on ties and rail though.
I understand that Brandenburg built those gondolas themselves; they're absolutely unique and totally cool. Apparently the cars and BISX mark are now operated by Residco (OFOX and TFOX are their other reporting marks).
ReplyDeleteI've been seeing these BISX cars show up on 501/502 (and formerly 509 before CN changed up their local operations) between Sarnia and London for at least a year or two mixed in with other 52' gondolas in steel scrap service.