Renovation

Well today I made a trip to Lowes and purchased some lumber and a sheet of plywood. While at Lowes, I took advantage of having the plywood cut into two (2) 18" x 8' lengths. I also purchased some 1"x 2" x 8' pieces of lumber. I used the lumber and made a box and girder type bench work is a piece of 1/4" project pine board on the top.

The bench work was 8 feet long and 18 inches wide. This replaced my 80 inch by 24 inch hollow core door bench work that was on shelving brackets. I kept the brackets up and blacked the box/girder bench work on top. It's amazing with what 6 inches of width will do! With the 24 inch hollow core doors, it felt like there was too much space. I contemplated taking it down to 16 inches but felt 18 would be enough for some of the industries I had in mind. I also gained 2 feet on each end so now things do not look so cramped.

I also picked up an eBay score, an Intermountain BN P-S 5277 Cu. Ft Box car. I plan on weathering it in the coming weeks after the layout is all set up. This from Intermountain's Pinnacle Series. Very nice car.

Next weekend I hopefully can get a foam cutting blade for a jig saw so I can have nice crisp edges for the foam that I'd like to install. After that I hope to paint the foam and get everything ready for track installation and wiring.

Track planning is coming along and I am hoping to get that mapped out this evening so that way when its time to install on the foam, it will go smoothly.

Update

Hello everyone! I apologize for the absence but work has been keeping me very busy and not helping with hobby time!

Since my last post I have installed some lighting and put down foam on the hollow core doors. I have been tooling around with track plans and it has been the most time consuming, an frustrating, thing. I have seeked help for at least two people for ideas and nothing seems to strike my fancy. My issue is that I want to have minimal amount of industries but maximize number of cars and car spots. HOWEVER, I do not have the space I really want for what I want to do. SO it as back to the drawing board.

I narrowed it down to about 2-3 industries. I wanted something unique but fun. First I drew up an idea for a paper plant. Things were looking great. I was doing research, Google Earth, Bing Maps and even some of the Trackside Industries books. IN the one book I found a plan for a paper plant. I was pumped, until I got the measuring tape out. I couldn't do it for the space I had. SO back to the drawing board.

A few weeks passed and I got the urge to try and get something figured out. So I started hunting again. This time I saw a cement plant. I had a number of cement hoppers and I started looking again. I figured the cement plant would be the center focus, with some smaller industries to keep it fun. Issue was that I couldn't achieve what I wanted. This time the space was too big for what I wanted to model.

This brings me to my other friend Google Search. I just started typing keywords for small HO switching layouts. I dug around and found some of Lance Mindheim's blogs. I have read them before but haven't really kept up to date. Well I poked around and did some reading and I found something that fit the mold. It was a simple "L" Shaped layout that had one siding and a major industry that took 3 different car types. (Boxcars, Grain hoppers and tank cars). I read the article some more and it made sense! Keep it short and simple. Easy track plan with Atlas track that can be upgraded to Micro Engineering (OR Hand-laid track). So I went and dug through the cache of rolling stock to see if I had the necessary items at hand, which I did. ( I had been building for a paper plant prior.) So next step was to start looking for a building kit. I knew I would either need to kitbash or scratchbuild. While looking through the collection of building kits, I found a Magic Pan Bakery Kit. With that I started thinking, maybe I need to make a low relief building of this and go from there.  So looks like a little more research will be in the works for me.

While looking at the picturs some more, I really wanted to have a cement and aggregate facility as well. (I just recently purchased some Blue Star Ready Mix tractor trailers for gravel hauling) SO I will be modifying the plan I saw, but who knows, I may just keep it short and simple.

 

Photo from Lance Mindheim's Blog

 

 

 

If anyone has feed back they wish to provide please let me know. I have been trying to have a functioning layout for over 3 years and I just keep getting frustrated over track work and a plan. 

Reference Photos Part 2

I wanted this blog not only to include my construction of my layout, but I wanted to include some photos to help modelers build industries on their layouts.

Below are some photos that I took at a rail served industry. The company makes wood trusses that are shipped out by truck. They receive center-beam flats of lumber via the Norfolk Southern Local that services the area from the Reading Yard.

 

Loading/unloading dock area. This could be achieved using the Pikestuff Kit.

 

Team track area w/ cement pad.

 

The small grade crossing is made of wood. To replicate this you could use the Woodland Scenics kit or I think Blair Line makes a laser kit you could install and stain.

 

Picture of the switch with the derail.

 

This is a picture of the area used to fill trailers with woodchips/saw dust from the manufacturing process. This has a spot for 2 trailers.

 

Shot of the sawdust/woodchip bin.

Tech Tip. Tuesday

Hello Modelers!

I am going to begin a series of posts on Tuesday of hopefully every week showing something I use to help with model railroading.

This week is something I just picked up for helping with painting. I picked up an inexpensive "Lazy Susan" at my local Bed Bath and Beyond.

I think this was $7.99. It has a rubber area and it spins pretty nice. Would be a great addition to you spray booth.

Mail Call Monday



Here is a few items I received in the mail from various sources. Most of the items were from eBay but one items is from Modeltrainstuff.com and the other was a sale off Facebook.

(SORRY FOR THE SIDEWAY PIC. IT WOULD NOT LET ME EDIT IT)

 

I picked this beauty up from Shaun Toman's Custom Weathering. Model is a Tangent PS4750 Covered Hopper. Pictures do not do it justice but this will look great at my trans-loading area on the layout.

Picked this up off of eBay. Custom weathered Liquid Sugars tank car

This was another eBay purchase. I think I have a covered hopper in my collection from the same company Specialty Minerals.

 

Yet another eBay purchase. I actually bought 3 of these. In the picture are the two I got in one auction.

The item I bought from Modeltrainstuff.com was the Walther's Cornerstone Series Medusa Cement.

 

 

 

I also picked up a clay slurry tank car which I cant find a decent picture of at the moment. Things are coming along but I think I will need to start inventorying and cataloging my cars so I know exactly what I have.

 

Thanks for keep up with the updates. Stay tuned for more, and maybe even a YouTube video in the future!

 

 

Motive Power Project

Well its been a few weeks. I actually finished this project about a week or so ago but with planning for a wedding I haven't had much modeling time.

I now have some time and wanted to post the progress of the newest addition to the WN.

Here is the cab and hood area all painted. This was pre clear coat.

 

Took the time to detail the cab a bit with the addition of a figure. I wanted to have a little more realism in my locomotives rather than a ghost cab. I added some of the decals and started applying the handrails. Figure is from MeDoMinatures

Here is another shot of the locomotive engineer.

 

 

 

I still need to paint some of the finer details and finish up with some of the other details like adding striping and some builder plates decals and other lettering.

New Power! New Project

I wanted to take a moment to to show a picture of a new project.

I purchased a used MP15 from Geno Sharp. Got a great deal on this Athearn Genesis MP 15 w/ DCC and sound. What the selling point for me was the working beacon on the roof (I'm a big fan of them!)

MP15 in the old Alabama Central Scheme. Unit was one of the SOO "Bandits"

First I had to strip the paint off. That was done with 91% rubbing alcohol. Here is the end result.

Tonight I plan on shooting it with a coat of primer, and hopefully have the BN Green on by tomorrow evening!

Stay tuned for more on this project and other upcoming things on the layout!