A Vision of Operations

Sharing the hobby of modeling railroading is to me one of the great strengths the community has.  The Onondaga Cutoff was created to share memories and passion for mainline railroad operations, and with a longtime goal of being able to share the operations through regular operating sessions.  Another important goal of mine was to share the railroad in the hobby media: magazines, this blog, social media, books, podcasts, etc.  

Those operations goals are met with a great group of local operators.  For nearly 15 years, the OC has supported regular sessions, generally on a monthly basis.  Here we have a group led by regulars including Al Tillotson, Doug Watts, Rich Wisneski, Jack Trabachino, Chris Lee, and Tom Schmieder. Those early sessions generated another layer of community, as guests of regulars from the North Jersey area gradually were invited to see what they had heard about.  

I am grateful for that larger community, and especially for Jerry Dziedzic who included the OC in November Interchange the first time.  Now more than a decade later the tradition continues in 2025.  The boys and I also pitched in, and our guests from the Washington, DC area did a fantastic job moving trains on the OC.  

Operations gives the railroad purpose, and gives us a reason to keep on railroading month after month.  It is essentially a role playing game for railroad people, and like any such activity it helps bring us together.  Each of the guys here has a life at home: family and friends, many with careers ongoing or from which they have retired.  And each makes time to bring that life experience here where we share it with a common goal of efficient operations.  The result is a really great camaraderie that is fun in the moment and generates anticipation for the next time.  

Look for opportunities to participate in operations.  Start with open invites or at regional shows, and see if you like it.  I think you might!

Giving Thanks

 As we head through Thanksgiving and into December, it is an annual time of Thanksgiving.  This is always a good time to take a breath and really think of things for which we are grateful.  And this year, it's an easy one for Conrail modelers.  

I love Thanksgiving.  I really do, it is my favorite holiday and a complete joy to host each year.  And a fun chapter of that night in the last few years has been the Abeles cousins all running trains around the OC after dessert.  Sure enough, that came to be once again!

Here's a grab shot in Island Yard, showing two fantastic 2025 deliveries that have helped the OC look the part.  In the background is Broadway Limited Imports' new business car, which is a PRR prototype that Conrail did not roster.  However, it's a great addition to my Office Car Special train, custom-painted, numbered and detailed by me to bring up the markers on the OCS train.  And of course, prominently in front of it here is the fantastic C36-7 by Rapido Trains.

As a thought exercise, either of these would have been sufficient for me this year.  The OC benefits quite a bit from both, and these models help with being able to share the story with others via operating sessions and with Facebook Live, with photographs for this blog or for magazines or books.

Those operating sessions specifically also make me thankful for the companionship and support of those that have helped with the OC from an operations aspect.  And there is no greater contributor from an operations perspective than Jack Trabachino.  I am grateful that we live near each other and can see each other regularly, that we work at the same company with the same mission, and most of all that it is still so much fun to hang out with each other.  We met in 1987 and so 40 years of friendship is right around the corner, and here we are enjoying a few drinks with each other in November.   

In fact if I take a minute to reflect on it, it is hard to not have other things come to mind for which I am thankful.  There's a text group, as a random example, with longtime friends I met through The Station Inn, and it brings me joy.  Alex Lang, Lou Capwell, Jon Kayes, Mike Filoni and I share images, reflect on happenings and get a few laughs regularly that way.  And all of this is only worthwhile because of Kristen, my wife and parter in all things, and 'DemClams' - those three crazy kids that make me proud and hold their own in a changing world.  

In closing, thanks to you too for reading this post and the blog, and for supporting the OC journey which is chronicled here.  There is no question that I have a lot to be thankful for!

Catchin' Up on November

We blink today in 2025, and in my later 40's, and the weeks and even months pass right by.  In so many parts of life we look at photos or videos and realize now and again that those months really did pass right by.  

Still, though, progress continues on the Onondaga Cutoff.  One of the hobby's best characteristics is that there is always something more to do, something to chip away at that will allow progress to continue.  

First, allow me one more post to just remark on how nice it is to see such beautiful models of 'Big Dash-7s' on the OC.  Through the 80's and '90's, the Albany Division was loaded with these locomotives, and these C36-7's especially roamed not only from Selkirk but also systemwide.  So you can't call a railroad the Chicago Line without them - and now here they are.  Amazing!

Just beautiful.  Those that follow my Patreon channel ( https://www.patreon.com/onondagacutoff ) are familiar with the improvements I did with the number boards, and aside from that I am simply thrilled with these models out of the box.  Someday, when there are also a bunch of C30-7A models (6550-6599) we will be all set.  

With the number board improvements completed, it was time to do a batch weathering of the new fleet, so I jumped into that quickly to get the series in service ahead of an operation session just before Thanksgiving 2025.  

They followed my usual procedures - details first, then masking, then panel liners and dullcoat.  These got a second layer of dullcoat as seen here, then got an overspray with a fade coat and grit coat on the underframes before final applications of pastel chalks and paint details.  

Here's three friendly faces, ready to join the 6621 in regular service.  Now, clearly to have seen four of the 25 total in one spot would be unlikely in Conrail days, but not impossible.  But what is a guy to do when one of the two most critical locomotives is offered commercially as a pre-order for limited production?  

Yep.  Get 'em all.  

I'll be paying for it for a while but this is the right thing for the roster now, like it will be again when the C30-7A is available.  

These are great problems to have!  

Best wishes to you all and I hope your Thanksgiving was great.  

One Little Improvement...

Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.  

It's cliche, of course: definitely overused on the prototype railroad, and perhaps too in other operations.  And it is overused for a reason.  When something is bugging you about a particular aspect of a model, it is best to avoid pondering it for too long, and just take action to bring it up to your standard.

This new C36-7 from Rapido Trains is one of the best things to come along on the Onondaga Cutoff for a while.  It is an exceptional model.  But, when looking at the Conrail one from the front, there is just a bit of something off.  Turns out the numberboard numerals and font do not match the prototype well.  GE used an 8" bold font for the numerals, while the scale version is about 6" tall and a much less bold font.  

Here's the factory boards from Rapido Trains above, compared to the prototype below...

To my eye, the difference in the numberboards is enough to sit on my mind.  "Hmmm....," I would think to myself.  "That new C36-7 is just about perfect in detail, running, sound, even lighting...but those numberboards just don't quite do it for me."  Again, I can appreciate that most people won't even notice.  But to my eye the boards on the front are about as prominent as the eyes in a photograph:  You can't help but look directly at them each time you see the face.  

Well, thanks to some research over the years and help from other modelers, there is an option to change things here for the better. For some reason, many model decal sets have the wrong font or size for numberboards. Years ago as I wondered how to finish up some painted models I was doing and my good friend and brother-in-all-sorts-of-trouble Alex Lang suggested ShellScale Decals for numberboards - and boy was he correct.  ShellScale specializes in numberboards and has a complete array.  Even better, since that project ShellScale has released a white-on-black set designed for backlighting.  The first layer is the black board shape with blanks or whiteout rectangles, and the second layer is clear numerals, with black outlines.  

After a few days of delicate work removing the old boards, sanding off the back-printed numbers, applying Micro-Gloss to the face, and then doing the decals, things came together well.

Now THAT is more like it - the numerals fill up the board and are nice and rounded like the prototype.  Just for verification here's a side by side, with the new on the left and stock on the right:

It goes without saying this can be a rabbit hole - some may just shake their heads and say 'that is just not worth it' and scroll on.  And yet I must say this little project really for me brings the model to a different level of authenticity.  There is no question to my mind that it was worth it, to the point where I am doing this will all my big Dash-7s should they come with the thinner font boards going forward.  

Still, though - what a world.  It remains incredible to me the quality and variety available to the modeler in 2026 even as compared to when this blog started.  Consider that a basic, non-DCC and non-sound Atlas C30-7 that needed a bunch of work to fit the mantle was $100 in 1995, inflation made that model $213 today in 2026.  Tariffs have messed up the scale, but given the superior quality and detail (plus $100 in sound), and perhaps it's not too much to ask to spend $350.  

Just food for thought.  I have some time to smile about that sort of thing now that I have a solution for that one little improvement on the C36-7 fleet!  

Side note:  Thank you to our nation's veterans, serving us so that we maintain our freedom and have the opportunity to work toward a more perfect union.  May the best be yet to come!

A fun side project - Rapido's C36-7 video!

We are all familiar with Rapido Trains and their funky, silly, and wonky videos they have always done in support of their products and the hobby at large.  

This week, my family had a chance to do one for them - and it's now live over on YouTube!

This one was a ball to make, the whole family having laugh after laugh as we put it together.  Fun for the whole family, as they say!  

The direct link is here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qUTDmeGZhs

Thanks for watching, and to Rapido for all the fun!

The new Rapido Trains C36-7 - wow!

 Now and again, a model release comes along that changes the look of a whole roster.  Like the B36-7 a few years ago, the new Rapido C36-7 follows the same pattern.  It's a beautiful new model!  

These were delivered to Conrail from GE in 1984, and were amongst the last Dash-7s built.  Conrail ended up rostering just 25 of them, but they were very common on the Chicago Line as maintenance for years was based at Selkirk.  

Weathering coming soon on this, and even more fun is that Rapido is doing a release video on it too, using my family as the (hokey) actors.  It will be a lot of fun, and I will share the link here when it is posted!  In the mean time, this is just yet another great example of a wonderful development in the hobby, one that I hope can continue.  The OC just got a bit more prototypical!

Moving Right Along!

 A few projects have been in the works lately, the sorts of projects that fit around life and work and the things that keep families moving forward.  

The first of these has been a recent focus on finally getting my model of LMS 702, a GE C40-8W, up to snuff.  LMS stands for 'Locomotive Management Services' and was a subsidiary of Conrail and Canadian National, as Union Pacific was reportedly also interested but backed out. These units were ordered in an effort to buy a pool of locomotives that could be used on either railroad in times when the company was short of power: the Canadian grain rush for CN, and the fall peak intermodal season on Conrail.  

In any case, these locomotives were built for LMS and delivered in Conrail colors but simple block lettering for LMS, numbered up from 701.  

They were C40-8Ws, but were built late for a Dash-8 - in fact, concurrent with C41-8W and C44-9W builts at the GE plant in Erie, PA.  As such, these last Dash-8s came with a Dash-9 radiator cap, and with Dash-9 style grab irons on the nose.  Otherwise, they are straight Dash-8's.  Therefore, they are fairly unique in the world of widenose GEs.  I wanted to change the Atlas model into one that matched the prototype.

This meant cutting into a nearly finished model, one with auxiliary lighting in place thanks to Garden State Modelworks.  Not a good idea!  And not an ideal change at this point.  But we do what we gotta do, right?  This project had been occupying space on my cluttered, overbusy mind for years and years.  Time to eliminate the rent-free guest.  

Rest assured, it's not a good feeling for me either to cut into an expensive model like this.  Not fun at all.  But we do need sometimes to remember that improvements take some demo sometimes.  The Dash-9 radiator cap, seen in the bottom above, is available from Kato directly as their part 966000.  But it's a bigger piece than the Dash-8.  So we pop the Atlas part off, and cut to make the new part fit.  Little by little!

A motor tool, like my Dremel above, makes some of the grinding and cutting easier.  Slow and steady wins during kitbashing, though.  Take your time.  The first part is the sides, and the back needs a razor saw cut to make the narrow, even slice to preserve the rear hood.  

Put it in, then remove it and work a bit more to get the fit just right.  It's a slow and delicate process, but worth it.  And once we start, there is no going back, so don't overdo it!

Test fits came out well, though.  Some underside of the new piece also needed trimming, little by little.  Once it was good, I used Testors plastic cement to fix the new radiator in place.  And...it didn't work, as the Kato plastic did not take to the glue.  I turned to Walthers Goo inside the shell which did a great job.  

While that cured, I reworked the nose, drilling new holes and bending wire grab irons as well as installing upgraded (and blue) sand fill caps per the prototype.

Those cured as well and it was time for paint.  Grabs were easy with the microbrush, but the radiator required a lot of masking so the Scalecoat II spray paint wouldn't ruin the factory decorations.

With a bit of weathering and an overspray of dull coat, though, we can now see the difference - the LMS unit on the left and a stock Conrail C40-8W on the right.  Note the thinner Dash-8 profile, and the three core sections of radiator on each side, compared to the deeper Dash-9 section with just 2 sections per side.  I am thrilled with the finished product - a subtle detail upgrade that puts to rest a longstanding pet peeve, and now adds just a little variety for operators.  Here we go!