Stranger in a Strange Land

The communal aspects of this hobby continue to amaze me.

Recently I had the honor of participating in the Around The Layout Podcast Interchange Tour. In a nutshell, modelers were able to sign up to host a Gunderson 50-foot paper boxcar in ATLP livery, operate it on their respective layouts, share a few photos of its journey, and make sure it physically makes it to the next location. It’s the model railroad version of a chain letter.

Fortunately, I had a group of like-minded hobbyists to make this a little more interesting.

Working with my friends and fellow Iowa Interstate modelers Joe Atkinson and Colin O’Brien, we quickly devised a simple scenario based on prototype car movements over our respective modeled portions. ATLP 2022 started its journey via Colin’s IAIS 3rd Subdivision, arriving on train CBBI, and was eventually set out in the Iowa City yard. IAIS 715, leading the day’s Iowa City Switch Job, sorted the car for delivery to the Hills Industrial Spur and started down the Hill Track…

…where ATLP 2022 found itself on The Hills Line. I was able to document the car being delivered empty to City Carton Recycling to load scrap paper bundles, which would eventually be sent to paper plants in Washington State. Along the way…

…ATLP 2022 will traverse Joe’s IAIS 4th Subdivision, passing through the sleepy communities of western Iowa. Train BICB is scheduled to bring the car through to Council Bluffs, where it will ultimately be interchanged to the Union Pacific for delivery out west.

This all came to a head during a two-week period last month. Each of us was able to photograph the car on our respective layouts and share them with the larger model railroad community. But thanks to some fortuitous timing, I was able to make my time with ATLP 2022 be a little more in-depth.

The car physically arrived at my house a few days before I was scheduled to host both Joe and my friend and fellow Iowa Interstate modeler Scott Thornton for a long overdue op session on The Hills Line. Of course, ATLP 2022 was released for pickup at City Carton by that day’s ICSW, closing the loop on this entire journey.

You can’t ask for much more from a hobby.

My sincere thanks to my friend Ray Arnott, creator and host of the always amazing Around The Layout podcast, for conceiving and coordinating this opportunity. Please enjoy this video documenting ATLP 2022’s journey on The Hills Line.