Port of Catoosa Railroad

All the bench work is complete. I have foam gluing down on the final part. I hopefully will have it all down tomorrow night. The peninsula is 19.5" wide by 73" long. I'm hoping I have enough room to do the team track and Hughes Lumber along with the west grain elevator complex. It's narrow but I feel I will be able to fit it all in.

The first photo is where the BNSF and SKO interchange and siding will be. The back wall should hold HARSCO and Word Industries. The far wall will have the Asphalt tanks and the east grain complex. Plenty of switching possibilities without overwhelming the layout with track. The space between the peninsula and the far wall will represent the navigation channel.

Thing are progressing nicly!

Thanks for looking!

 

A little progress this week. From the west:
This is where the hidden staging will enter. To the front is the BNSF interchange will start after crossing Bird Creek. There is a view block at the wall and the SKO track will come in behind it.

Looking down the west side, the Conductors work table is below. The front track is going to move closer to the edge to allow for Hwy 167 to parallel it to and over Bird Creek.

I went ahead with the peninsula for Gavilon West Grain complex. I will also work in the team track and Hughes Lumber. In the background is the wye for running into Gavilon. I made that up tonight. It is soldered together except for the isolation joints on the converging legs.

The main circles the channel on the east side and Gavilon East Complex will be on the south end. That is the main track on the back. There is also room for a spur going towards the back wall. I'll probably go chemical facility there.

On the far back wall HARSCO and Word Industries will be located.

I have powered up and run the wye track, there are a few bugs to work out in the wiring yet but I am happy with how it turned out.

You will note the crew lounge under the east turn.
Thanks for looking.
Dale

 

Great progress Dale

 

Well I think I figured out the wye problem. I isolated it like a reverse loop, which means I broke connections on two legs of the wye. A wye requires that only one leg to be isolated. So as soon as I can I will desolder one leg and add the isolation to both ends. The other two legs will be soldered at all joints. Live and learn. Once I get it rewired I will get temporary power up and running a do some test running. I will also get temporary Spurs in at the industry locations and try switching into them. I'm going to use double-sided tape to hold the track in place for the testing. If everything works out, roadbed goes in and we start laying permanent track work.

Thanks Tom and Michael for the compliments!

 

Well, progress is being made. I'm pretty sure I have the final track configuration laid out. I have it tacked down on the base and am going to spend a few days switching it. I ended up with a bit more track than planned but I think it will make things flow better.

The wye is working correctly now. The only regret I have is that the bench work is a bit narrow on the peninsula.

I will post up some pictures this week. I've also managed to come up with some ideas to extend the length of the peninsula to add more length to the grain Spurs and add some width.

Pictures soon!

 

Looking north along the east side of the navigation channel, location of Gavilon East compilex and the hot asphalt plant in the back.

Looking down the peninsula with the channel to the right. Gavilon West Complex in front. On the left is the team track and Hughes Lumber behind it.

The north wall, close is HARSCO plant and Word Industries to the east end.

The west wall is the BNSF interchange track and behind the board is the hidden SKO interchange track. I am able to put both the 6 axel units through the wye and turn them around.

Thanks for looking.

 

Just a quick update on progress. After running some operation sessions on the tacked down track and finding things ran pretty smoothly I have started putting down foam roadbed on the main portions of the layout. I should have that down soon and can final fit and permently attach the track.

In the times I want a bit of change of focus I'm working on weathering cars and locos. I'll post up some pictures soon.

I had one of those work gets in the way of my hobby weeks and spent a week in Las Vegas for a trade show last week. It was a road trip so I drove out across I-40 thru Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to get there. I've never seen so many stack trains in my life on the way back!

But one thing I thought about on the return going thru Texas was the modeling possibility presented along I-40 west of Amarillo. Back in the day, the railroad ran alongside Route 66 thru the towns like Vega and Adrian and others. All of these small towns had grain facilities, bulk fuel dealers and other customers. You can still see the old mainline where in ran along side the highway. What if.... I've almost given thought to bringing that into present day as a free-lance RR (I blame you Tom for this!) and switching focus of the POCR. Not going to happen. But if someone takes it up, I'll be rooting for you!

Anyway, I'm still here and enjoying your posts and work!

Dale

 

Some things I'm working on during laying down foam roadbed, which is incredibly boring BTW! So this is kind of a what's on my workbench/show your new stuff.

2 Walthers SD70ACe, you can see they are being weathered. These are speed matched right out of the box!

I am weathering all my 60' bulkhead flats. I used the RGW method on the decks. Thanks Michael for posting that. They are all getting reflective strips in addition to rus, grime and dirt.

Thanks everyone for your inspiration!

 

Sweet set-up Dale, like the progress. M

 

I like that KCS paint scheme. We see a few of them around here. These are the Walthers Mainline with DCC and the abbreviated sound. They actually ran speed matched right out of the boxes. The Section Chief gave them to me for Christmas. She's a peach! I have one set to run normal and one set to run reverse. I have a BNSF scheme in the same loco. As soon as I can get back over to the club I'm going to try running all 3 together. If it works, I'll graduate to using distributed power on some trains.

I'm just about done gluing down the roadbed. Then I can get the track back in. I'll do a few more op sessions then attach the track down and start scenery.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys!

 

I have the Athearn genesis version, the turbine whine is awesome

 

I would likely get some bulkhead flats. What manufacturer are the ones in the pictures above?

 

The flats are Roundhouse. I picked most of them up on eBay.

Michael, I also have the Gensis version. The Walthers are about half the cost and offer a pretty bang for the buck. PM me and I will let you know where they came from and the cost.

The Gensis is a pretty good model!

 

Some progress shots at the port. We are up and operating again. The track has not been permanently attached down yet. But we are still able to run operation sessions. With a full compliment of cars it takes about two and a half to three hours to deliver and pick up cars. So enjoy!

 

Made some progress the last couple of weeks on the layout. The sky boards are all in and painted. I've installed the facia board and painted one coat on the western side of the layout. I reworked the Word Industries steel facility track and worked in a single stall engine house for the POCR locomotives to use.

The aisle that represents the navigation channel is yet to be painted on the facia. I'm toying with the idea to paint a color to represent water. It would be a kind of murky blue-brown.

I have the Bird Creek bridge pretty well built. I'm probably going to change out the piers with round ones. Then add a short span at the right end over the bank, I can use one of the existing piers there.

Unfortunately, the crew chair is going to have to go, it takes up too much aisle space!
I plan on having guests to operate in the next week or so. I want their thoughts on how it "flows" operations wise.

Thanks for looking!
Dale