BC Rail subdivision in progress

[montanan]

Looking real good. I can see that you can be kept busy switching for hours. It appears that you are also interested in detailing small towns also. Hopefully I can get the ballasting completed in my yard and start working on my town detailing soon. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

 

[logandsawman]

Your layout is so big I am having a hard time getting my head around it. All of your work looks first class!! lasm

 

[goscrewyourselves]

Twist,

Sorry for the delay in responding but I have been away for a little while. Thank you for the information re your LED lights, they look great and seem to be reasonably priced as well, for 5 meters of lighting.

Your layout is looking great ... you seem to be doing things very methodically and and that is a good thing in my opinion. I should take my own advise

 

[Lynnb]

Your layout is coming along real nice. I don't know about you but I often struggle with turning some nice structures inward so all you see is the back of the building but in the long run it makes the scene so much more interesting.

 

[Twist]

Hi there,
thanks for the kind comments on my progress...I love those small town scenes and also seeing the cars on the streets....
Lynn,I like both of it....The front with the streets looks interesting and also the backdoor scenes often are nice to model.....I hope I could model both on the town scene....
as I wrote I did some work on the warehouse and added some pikestuff walls and some styrene base and finaly came up with this one....
It will recieve inbound goods by rail in boxcars.Outbound traffic will be empty boxcars...Trucks will be used for delivery....

I´ll add more windows to the grey building as it will be an office part of the complex....I´m only thinking about cutting a second opening for railtraffic to the left of the current opening and adding some length to the track in front of the loadingdock into the building....so not more tracks,only the second track is going into the building,too....
What do you think about.Any suggestions are very appreciated...

And while I was playing around with styrene I thought about working on the street scene in front...I decided to rip out that foam and go with some type of MDF board as a base....so I could lift it out and work on the workbench on the streets and structures....

There will be no sturctures in the background area between the mill complex and the warehouse,only trees and other scenery....maybe the backside of a small structure with a fence or something like that....surrounded by trees and it will be non railserved...it depends on how I will like the look through the buildings on the street scene .

Any comments are very appreciated as always...Any tips and infos are also very welcome because I could only work von photos and not on traveling through time and space to the locations I´m modelling

Thanks for looking,
Cheers,Chris

 

[goscrewyourselves]

Your layout is looking great. Looking forward to seeing the completed sceneries.

 

[montanan]

Looks like you have a good plan, things are coming together. Well done.

 

[tootnkumin]

Looking at the warehouse track that you're going to extend into it, a smaller # "Y" turnout would allow you to have more straight track against the loading dock.

 

[A2TwrOpr]

Your layout is coming along nicely. As for the warehouse, I would leave the track arrangement as is. I like it but then again it's not my layout.

 

[Twist]

Hi there,
thanks for the answers.It´s a lot of fun to build and make changes while I´m building......
And for the second opening in the warehouse I made a decision.You will see it below in my description for the warehousearea.And I´ll stay with only one opening for now.
I made some progress or better track changes to the warehouse and GERN Industries Limited area.Here is a drawing with Anyrail for that area

After I´ve played with the current track arrangement for some time I wasn´t happy with that....so I ripped the track off and started from new....okay,I only have to pull out the tracknails....and moved the turnouts around the wood and finaly I found the way to go....

I added some length to the track in front of the loadingdock on the warehouse part.I have to cut the sheet for the new arrangement but that will be no problem....

To the back I´ll be add another smaller non railserved warehouse.As you could see I added the masonite for the backdrop....have to paint it some kind of blue and add some backdrope to both sides of the area...

A bigger change was done on the GERN industries complex because i added a third track for the mill building and seperated it from the to tracks for the elevator.I´ll build an open shed for the loading/unloading area for the hoppers.You could see where it will be placed in the picture below where the metal sheds are located.

The shed will be kitbashed/scratchbuild from Pikestuff parts and sheet...I´m thinking of removing the Walthers grain silo to another location and building an addon to the millbuilding from metal siding....will do a mockup from cardboard and show it here.....
So,that´s all for today.When I´m at home from work this evening I´ll finish tracklaying and will add some feeders....More will follow,soon.

Thank you for looking, any comments are very welcome.

Cheers,Chris

 

[goscrewyourselves]

Chris,

Looking good, really good.

 

[tootnkumin]

Looks much more like a yard would look.

 

[Twist]

Hi there,
thanks a lot.....It´s always a good thing to test what you have done for some time before starting with scenery etc.....

Cheers,Chris

 

[tootnkumin]

Just a thought on the area available for the trucks to manoeuvre into position at the doors of the warehouse. Doesn't give much room. How about moving the 2 tracks (main & passing siding?) inwards toward the inner corner, (might need to put a corner filler in there to accommodate them). Probably need to move the turnout to the "south" as well. Then the truck access can come in off the main street over both tracks.

 

[Twist]

Hi,
thanks,I thought about that for some time.The bench on this portion is only 23cm (9inch) wide so adding another 10 cm would do it but I´ll loose length of track....but it could work...I´ll give it a try as the track isn´t layed glued down.....
Later,Chris

 

[tootnkumin]

Good to try it out, but it all comes down to selective compression. Only 1 person in 100 might notice that slight cramping of the warehouse yard as it is anyway. Especially if it required some loss of town buildings/scenery.

 

[Twist]

Hi,
toot,I´ve tryed it out yesterday evening and it´s looking better.In fact I have thought how I could add some place to the warehouse area for the trucks.But I haven´t got the idea what to do before your post....And it´s not much scenery I´ll loose on the town.....I also have an idea for the left side of that area and I´ll give it a thought,too...Anyway,here´s a photo what I´ve done last evening.

Before the redo:

After yesterday evening:

Thanks for the input.It´s always very appreciated.

Cheers,Chris

 

[tootnkumin]

Will get a few more parked trucks in there and a fork-lift or two. Maybe another rail/trucking industry as well.

 

[Twist]

Hi there,
It´s been a while since I posted some updates.I made a short break on the railroad because a bad back but now I´m getting better.I made some progress on it inspired by the comments here and somewhere else so I played around with tracks and buildings and got that.

So ripped out the old trackwork and started new.Bought a secondred wing mill kit and bashed it together.The Industrie spurs will be private properity with a fence around it etc. And here´s the beginning of the rebuild.

You can see the printed out trackplan on the benchwork...When I´m getting better I´ll finish trackwork and wire it and move some trains around...More will follow,soon....

Happy Holidays,
Cheers,Chris

 

[tootnkumin]

It's the leaning forward in that position for lengths of time that contributes to bad backs, puts a lot of strain on the muscles supporting the spine and the joints themselves. Gets aggravated when we straighten up using those tensioned muscles to do the straightening. Apart from limiting the time we spend in those positions, pushing up with the arms can help relieve that extra effort. Oddly enough, I've found that it's when you reach sideways and twist or turn at the same time to pick up or move something, is when a spasm will occur. It's those spasms that do the greatest damage, the "bad back" comes on, usually, slowly after that.

Looking at your plan again, I like the fact that it's something of a problem to switch. The track nearest to the town would probably be regarded as your main line, to be as unobstructed as possible for through traffic, but in actual fact it is your only track from, and to which to dismantle or build a train for the industries being served. The RRoad would want to combine as many loads as possible into a train economically and that track is the only one available to do so, so, in fact yard limits would apply to that track as well also. Any through trains approaching would need to know this. What this would mean is, if there was a priority train approaching and the yard switcher was working on a train "on the main", it would have to clear the secondary yard track above the main, so that the priority train could pass through on the secondary, at reduced speed.

You could create a lead track alongside the main lines on one or even both of the main lines heading away from town, but this would require more "real estate", personally I don't think you should. Unless you want the pleasure of running more easily uninterrupted main line traffic past the town, the potential "bottle neck" presents a challenge to operations and adds an interesting element. If you were to run Ops sessions with others, that yard could occupy 1 persons time quite substantially.