RailMix asked: So this whole section of your layout is junk? Yep! And take note!: Allied Iron and Steel, Cruise Scrap, and Miller Aluminum are also "scrappy" businesses, and someday their sections of the layout will be nicely detailed junk, too.
Got the Buss wiring around the staging area in yesterday. I'll post a couple of the pictures here but there is a more detailed description on TrainBoard ( HERE ) and on my site ( HERE ). Above is a picture of the test track and I did using a perimeter buss for the track and for switch machines that are controlled at the side of the layout and that have a SPDT switch on them that can power the frog. Drop the frog lead and take it to the side and wire it to the SPDT switch and the switch to the buss. Above you can see the frog wiring and the track feeder wires attached to the buss. Also there I used insulated wires but decider to try uninsulated this time to avoid having to strip it although that wasn't that hard. I moved the wire clamps closer together and they are 3D printed. You can find them with other 3D printable clamps on my thingiverse account ( HERE ). . Spending 20 minutes making the tool above really speeded things up. I'd drill the four pilot holes. Use the length of the tool to go to the next four, drill them and move on. Could drill the holes for a 10 foot section in a couple minutes and they were perfectly spaced when I screwed the wire clamps to the fascia. . . As you can see above the bottom two wires are #14 wire for the DCC buss and the upper two wires are #16 for the 5 volt buss that can be used for servo switch machines, LEDs and anything else that can run on 5 volts. I'm not trying to convince people to take this approach and probably wouldn't of myself if I was 20 years younger but I'm not and some of you might not be either. This might provide a way for you to continue enjoying the hobby if going under the layout has been a game changer for you. Sumner
I've been working on the first scrap pile over the past few days, being guided by the information provided by Dave. Started with one of the pop out foam sections from a Kato storage case. Carved it to the desired shape and glued it to some .030 styrene that would hopefully keep it flat. This pile is intended to be about 60 scale feet long and maybe 20 feet wide. One of Daves suggestions was to use plastic water bottle plastic to represent thin sheet metals. I cut about half of a 500ml Crystal Geyser bottle into circular strips and then chopped those into shorter pieces with my chopper. Spread white glue over the foam mound and sprinkled on the plastic, adding some bits of thin wire, scraps of thin styrene, and some of the same corrugated foil material I had used for the fence. After that dried and some pieces were still loose, I added scenic cement with a pipet. The next day I sprayed two coats of Model Master rust. The bad thing about using the clear plastic bottle material is that anything not well covered with paint will shine. After the paint dried, I added some different weathering powders to try to give it some variation. Then sprayed it with Dullcoat to further kill any remaining shine but that seemed to also kill the weathering powders which is what usually happens with weathering powder and Dullcoat. I may go back and do some dry brushing or maybe weathering powders again. One thing I really like about using the plastic bottle materials is that the ribs on the bottle give more variety to the scrap pieces and they are not all just flat. This pile would be enough to fill 2 or 3 gondolas with the Light Melting Steel type scrap.
Beautiful, Brad. And a great description, too. Other modeling options for Light Melting Steel/sheet metal: A scrap yard's estimate of how many gons can be filled from a particular pile of sheet metal scrap will be significantly influenced by how far and how fast the gondolas will be moving. Especially when the gon is traveling farther and faster, large sheet metal pieces that stick up above the sides of a fast moving gondola might catch the wind and be blown out of the gondola, so gons carrying lighter scrap materials may only be "filled" to the halfway point, or, they are covered with a wire netting to keep pieces in the gon. If the gon is only traveling locally (say, from a Scrap Iron Recycling Center to a nearby steel mill or foundry), the load may be a little higher (perhaps, "full" at the 3/4 mark) because the speed is much slower and the possibility of scrap blowing out is less. With a Heavy Melting Steel (HMS) load, the likelihood of scrap blowing out of a gondola is very low, so it can be stacked much higher than Light Melting Steel. This pic of a HMS load was taken in Keystone Steel and Wire Mill about 2 miles south of the Scrap Iron Recycling Center that processed (sorted and properly sized) the scrap for loading into KSW's electric arc furnace.
Soo,am I late to the party or what???! First off, this is a neat thread! Just wish I had seen it sooner. Second, Sumner, when was you livin up near Sheridan? Sounds like about '70? Third, PPUIN, wow! That layout is looking great! Fourth, The one shot of the BN 60's pulling by a car dealer evokes the east end of Miles City in the worst. (best?) way! Nice! Fifth, From back in Dec when this party started, I was finishing up adding some new switches and control switches to the yard, Which led to a need to get a start on locomotive servicing. Now the NP was known for ramped coal bunkers, for coaling up steam, and that led to a build, as yet incomplete, but readily seen in this short video. I took a break due to concerns in my thinking about the coal chutes and the need for parts and a few other thoughts that need thunk through, To help in the thinking, a weathering party occurred!! About 40 or 50 cars went through the process. As did good ole reliable 2511, finally almost done in her build and paint and lightly weathered, before and after videos,
Graduated from U. of Wyo in '74 after only 13 years working on that (service, jobs, changed majors (geology, engineering and finally education) delayed graduation). Taught school (industrial arts) on the Cheyenne Reservation north of Sheridan for 2 years then moved to Sheridan and was there to '89 when I sold my computer store and thought I was retired (lasted 2 years ). Moved to SE Utah where I've been ever since and the best place I've ever lived. You lived in Sheridan at one point? Sumner
badlandnp said: The one shot of the BN 60's pulling by a car dealer evokes the east end of Miles City in the worst. (best?) way! Nice! Thanks. I started modeling in N-scale when I moved to Central Illinois in 1974 and drove by that scene in Grove (North Pekin) almost daily. It is the eastern end for BN coal trains which originated in Decker Montana (about 160 highway miles south of Miles City) and Kleenburn, Wyoming (about 180 highway miles south of Miles City). In the 1970s, the era I am modeling, 9 BN coal trains from Decker or Kleenburn arrived there each week, but I don't know the exact routes they took to Central Illinois...maybe through Miles City? Edit: Decker and Kleenburn are less than 20 highway miles from each other
My wife and I lived just south of the Decker mine with the line to the mine on our west property line. Decker is south of Miles City almost on the Wyoming state line and not too far out of Sheridan to the northeast of town. KleenBurn which we called the Acme mine was just north of Sheridan and where we bought coal by the pickup load for either $12 or $18 a ton. As far as I know those trains went east through Gillette, Wyo and I assume on to Lincoln and east from there. We heated the house with a stove I made and still have with either wood or lump coal. Wood was harder/more work to get. The coal easier but didn't like to burn it as much. 50 year memories.... Sumner
Working on the panels for the boosters and circuit breakers so I can get power to the staging area for the track that hopefully I'm soon laying... ... more pictures and info to come on my layout build thread ( HERE ) Sumner
Sumner - Haven't lived there, but have been through both Sheridan and Gillette. I need to go through both again before coal ends and burn some electrons on trains! I am in Glendive, MT and used to work at BNSF, (biggest mistake....) and a lot of Decker trains went through here to Superior docks. At the roundhouse here, the power was removed from the empties on their way through and serviced. So we always had to have new power set up for the outbound crew. A pair of 60's and a 40 or two for most trains. I think the Decker trains had 2 60's and 2 40's due to the grade into or out of the mine. Then the MAC's arrived. Changes in power makeup was a struggle for a while, and the SF had no clue how the weather affected things here! As for Miles City, the car dealer in Willy Wonka had a quonset hut by the BN/NP mainline, which is still there. Just east, there is a dealer across the highway with a row of trees and such that really evokes what you have in that scene. Very cool! Time to get done with the day and maybe do some train playing!?
Finally, Knoxville Crossing is finished. Trees were refurbished last week, but Lane striping wasn't completed until Friday evening. Knoxville Crossing Before Upgrade: Bad trees, no lane stripes, poor crossing details, unpaved parking lot in front of the billboard. Knoxville Ave by ppuinn posted Jan 19, 2023 at 11:30 PM Knoxville Crossing After upgrade: decent looking lane stripes, good crossing details, (although replacing these laser cut signals with Flashing RR signals is temporarily on hold until an undermined future time), parking lot is now "paved" instead of painted Homasote. RI Kellar Branch Job at Knoxville Crossing by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 12:17 AM Photo Feb 04 2023, 9 08 06 AM by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 10:45 AM While glue was drying at various stages in the Knoxville Crossing upgrade, I refurbished the backdrop trees behind the houses along Prospect Avenue, added Evergreen Plastic strip sidewalks on both sides of the street (and then took them out because they were weren't parallel and they were too close together), reinstalled all sidewalks along W. Prospect (and all the front walks that were now too long or too short from the houses to the relocated sidewalks), and re-"paved" the uneven plaster Prospect Ave from Knoxville Ave to Glen Avenue with card stock. I'll clean up the grass around the sidewalks and make an executive decision about whether to paint the sidewalks now or wait for a future Layout Party. Prospect Ave trees and homes and Junction City shops mock-up before upgrade: North 4 houses by ppuinn posted Jan 19, 2023 at 11:30 PM Prospect North 4 houses after upgrade: Prospect Homes, North 4 by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 12:49 AM Prospect Ave trees and South 4 homes before upgrade: South 4 Houses by ppuinn posted Jan 19, 2023 at 11:30 PM Middle 4 homes and background trees after upgrade: Prospect Homes, Middle 4 by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 12:49 AM Prospect and Glen before upgrade: Glen Ave by ppuinn posted Jan 19, 2023 at 11:30 PM Prospect at Glen and South Homes after upgrade: Prospect and Glen Avenues by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 1:33 AM Another view of South 4 homes and Prospect-Glen Ave intersection after upgrade: The mirror still needs some tweaking and the grass around the sidewalks will be touched up in the next few days when I work on the homes and shops in the middle of the shelf. Mirror at Prospect and Glen Intersection by ppuinn posted Feb 4, 2023 at 1:33 AM Junction City shops, the homes with yards, trees, sidewalks, and driveways in the middle of the shelf, and the Glen Avenue shops are scheduled for upgrade this coming week. The sidewalks at the Glen Avenue Crossing, which are only half done, and the Glen Ave grade crossing details will also be addressed.
Update, some of the same photos posted in other areas. Some not Now you see my plastic models Now you don't. It's magic I tell you Left over pieces of one of those paper shades. Just happened to fit perfectly. And it has double sided tape on it, but I didn't want to use it and get my base all sticky. Now how to add the second one to the side in front of my plastic bin? I probably won't to be honest. Want to access my train stuff easily! Me thinks!
Sumner, Shortround, VinceP: Thanks guys! There are 14 houses in this section of the layout: four already built plastic kit houses that I picked up at a garage sale or train show decades ago, and those 10 "colorful houses" which are Libertyville Ceramics. I've been putting these cast plaster houses on my layouts since the late 1970s or early 80s when I came across 5 or 6 of them at a discount store called Unclaimed Freight for $3 or $4 each. I had seen them new in stores and thought they'd be very close to N-scale (maybe 1:180 instead of 1:160), but didn't want to spend the asking price of $10 to $15 each. Over the years I've picked up more at garage sales and flea markets, any time I could spend less than $5 each. I mix them in with plastic kits, some of which I've built myself, card stock and cardboard mock-ups, and other houses I've picked up already built at garage sales and train shows. All of them are mounted on a 1/4" plaster foundation/base, so I carve out a "basement" in my Homasote or build up around the base and taper it down to street level. I tried cutting off the 1/4" plaster base of one of Unclaimed Freight purchases...it did not go well. Seven of the 9 houses in North Pekin are Libertyville Ceramics: Libertyville Houses in North Pekin by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM Five of the 16 houses along Caroline and 4th Street in Pekin are Libertyville Ceramics, 10 are card stock mock-ups, and 1 is a plastic kit: Libertyville Houses Caroline and 4th in Pekin by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM Seven houses along Route 29 in Pekin are Libertyville Ceramics, 13 are plastic kits (about 3/4 are built kits from garage sales or train shows, 4 are kits I built. Libertyville Houses on Route 29 in Pekin by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM One house in Decatur is Libertyville Ceramics, one is a built plastic kit bought at a train show, and the rest are Google Maps street view pictures: Libertyville House in Decatur by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM One business along Adams Street in Peoria is Libertyville Ceramics; 3 are cardboard mock-ups, one is a kitbash: Libertyville Business on Adams Street in Peoria by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM One business in Indianapolis is Libertyville Ceramics, most of the others are photos, Google Maps Street View screen shots or printed Model Builder structures glued to cardboard. The big gray silos are painted and repurposed contact lens solution cans; the shorter gray tanks are medicine bottles; the blue tanks are cash register paper spools waiting for paint, piping, and a pump house; and the white silos are from an unpainted grain elevator kit Two views of the shop Libertyville Business near P&E Yard in Indianapolis #1 by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM Libertyville Business near P&E Yard in Indianapolis #2 by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM I also bought a bin with 5 or 6 Libertyville Ceramics houses for a buck a piece from a neighbor who was downsizing for a move to a senior community and knew I was looking for more. I told her I was going to put them in Decatur, but since then I've changed my mind...they are too fancy for sitting directly across the road from a rail yard, so I'll probably find another place for them.
Libertyville Houses Caroline and 4th in Pekin by ppuinn posted Feb 5, 2023 at 12:04 AM When I quickly shot a half dozen pictures to show the other Libertyville Ceramics on my layout, I also noticed I need to add refurbishing the trees near Caroline and 4th Street in Pekin to my Layout Party to-do list...probably after I finish the Glen Avenue Crossing and before I refurbish the trees near Allied Mills/Wayne Foods.
