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dthurman
Guest
Looking better everyday Ken! I am getting pretty mad at myself, I haven't done any type of scenery/building work in eons, just operating the layout.
Iron Belt layout - track laid (plan w/photos)
- Thread starter IronBeltKen
- Start date
Steve B
Firefighter
Unfortunatly not any more. Pacific Car and Foundry produced steel castings from the instlation of it's first furnace in 1911 till it's closure in 1988, the structural steel division closed it's door's in 1973 due to foreign imports from the far east. The biggest single contract for Paccar was for the supply of the steel spandrels that became the "world trade center" in NY, they manufactured and supplied the steel from the 9th to 107th floor's of the WTC. in total 5668 sections ranging from 5 to 23 tons each were produced and required 1,600 flat cars to transport them to NY from Seattle, originally the company had quoted a price for barge shipment, there was a $10,000 a day penalty for late delivery so they had to go by rail which cost an additional 1.16million dollars, this combined with a three month strike at the steel plant and cheaper Japanese imports forced the closure of Paccar's last steel facillity. By 1988 it closed it's doors on railcar manufacture after 70 odd years making railcars, did you know they produced the first true connected log truck for the logging industry, they were trading as Seattle Car Mfg Co back in 1909,,,i'll be blown if i can find the Bag house article in the 328 pages, oh well
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Guys,
Thatnks alot for all the positive feedback, that makes all the effort truly worthwhile!
Dave, at least you are able to operate - more than what I can do at the moment (and my 7yr-old has lately been begging me to run some trains with her... )
Thatnks alot for all the positive feedback, that makes all the effort truly worthwhile!
Dave, at least you are able to operate - more than what I can do at the moment (and my 7yr-old has lately been begging me to run some trains with her...
)It's working both ways Josh - I'm hoping to try your gondola-denting technique this weekend!jbaakko said:
Rex, the big 'pipe' is a type of Plastruct tubing that most hobby stores don't stock on their shelves, it has to be ordered directly from Plastruct. The support towers were made from Evergreen styrene strip and 'H' columns.RexHea said:
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Little Grande Man
Grande fan
Nice work, Ken. That's going to be quite a layout. What is the tightest curve radius, maximum grade, etc.?
LGM
What is the tightest curve radius, maximum grade, etc.?LGM
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Thanks LG! The tightest main line radius is 31" (to accommodate 89-foot auto racks), while the tightest mill curve [AFIK] is 18". I don't believe any of the grades are over 1%, excluding the leads to the rotary dumper.Little Grande Man said:Nice work, Ken. That's going to be quite a layout.
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Background Check
3/04/2006
OK now I'm finally at a point where I once again have something to actually show pics of!
A few months ago I got a half-dozen sheets of blue extruded foam insulation (a.k.a. Dow Board) to have a more natural-looking background to hide the ugly garage shelves and all their clutter. Well, over the past week I've been painting-on 'trees' - or should I say, splotches of green paint that resemble the edge of a forest. I saw a fellow modeler "cheese3" on another forum do this on his layout, said he got the idea from watching a TV artist named Bob Ross. As for me, I used to do landscape oil paintings this way during my college days. In any case, this was a cheaper solution than buying several hundred dollar$ worth of Woodland Scenics foilage clumps - especially since I had a leftover $60 gift certificate for my local hardware store, might as well put that to good use!
Here are some of the materials and tools I used: Medium and light shades of green latex paint (also black which isn't pictured), a round 1" brush, a natural sea sponge to apply paint for the 'foliage' effect, and a disposable paint roller tray for pre-squeezing excess paint from the sponge.
The next three photos illustrate my forest-painting technique on a sample chunk of MDF.
First, apply a base coat of black to simulate the lower, shadowy areas...
Using the sea sponge after the black paint dries, apply liberal splotches of meduim green paint, making sure to cover the top edge of the black undercoat:
Again using the sea sponge, apply thin 'sprinkles' of light green paint to resemble the outermost leaves catching the sunlight:
One of the reasons I chose to paint my own backgrounds instead of buying the pre-printed variety, was so I could position where I wanted to have any openings. In the following image of the model town of East Minister, I needed a gap where the highway disappears into the backdrop. I added a bluish-green-gray treeline on the distant horizon to finish off the scene:
I truly wish I could have shown more photos of the finished, installed MDF backdrops - but since the layout is cluttered with all manner of tools and paint cans, I didn't think that would make for worthwhile viewing. One of these weeks the messy work will be completed and trains will populate the trackwork. Really.
3/04/2006
OK now I'm finally at a point where I once again have something to actually show pics of!
A few months ago I got a half-dozen sheets of blue extruded foam insulation (a.k.a. Dow Board) to have a more natural-looking background to hide the ugly garage shelves and all their clutter. Well, over the past week I've been painting-on 'trees' - or should I say, splotches of green paint that resemble the edge of a forest. I saw a fellow modeler "cheese3" on another forum do this on his layout, said he got the idea from watching a TV artist named Bob Ross. As for me, I used to do landscape oil paintings this way during my college days. In any case, this was a cheaper solution than buying several hundred dollar$ worth of Woodland Scenics foilage clumps - especially since I had a leftover $60 gift certificate for my local hardware store, might as well put that to good use!
Here are some of the materials and tools I used: Medium and light shades of green latex paint (also black which isn't pictured), a round 1" brush, a natural sea sponge to apply paint for the 'foliage' effect, and a disposable paint roller tray for pre-squeezing excess paint from the sponge.
The next three photos illustrate my forest-painting technique on a sample chunk of MDF.
First, apply a base coat of black to simulate the lower, shadowy areas...
Using the sea sponge after the black paint dries, apply liberal splotches of meduim green paint, making sure to cover the top edge of the black undercoat:
Again using the sea sponge, apply thin 'sprinkles' of light green paint to resemble the outermost leaves catching the sunlight:
One of the reasons I chose to paint my own backgrounds instead of buying the pre-printed variety, was so I could position where I wanted to have any openings. In the following image of the model town of East Minister, I needed a gap where the highway disappears into the backdrop. I added a bluish-green-gray treeline on the distant horizon to finish off the scene:
I truly wish I could have shown more photos of the finished, installed MDF backdrops - but since the layout is cluttered with all manner of tools and paint cans, I didn't think that would make for worthwhile viewing. One of these weeks the messy work will be completed and trains will populate the trackwork. Really.
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Steve B
Firefighter
Hello Gent's,,,Nice work Ken, that's a great job which add's miles to the scene.
just to show you don't have to spend a million dollars to get a good result on the backdrop this is one i did 3 years ago in a spare hour, i used flat black spray and two shades of green i had lying around, the highlights were added at the same time by mixing some lighter colours to the green's. i did mine on 1/8" masonite
just to show you don't have to spend a million dollars to get a good result on the backdrop this is one i did 3 years ago in a spare hour, i used flat black spray and two shades of green i had lying around, the highlights were added at the same time by mixing some lighter colours to the green's. i did mine on 1/8" masonite
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Thanx Steve!
That scene you posted is one of my favorites from your old Yarrow Valley. Is that a kitbashed Pikestuff building in the foreground? I'll be doing a number of false-front buildings on the outside perimeter resembling that, but most likely I'll just use Evergreen corrugated sheet styrene.
My next mini-project is to assemble the New River kit. It'll only be a 'vanilla' Walthers structure, except it won't be the familiar aluminum color - I plan to paint it something like THIS
That scene you posted is one of my favorites from your old Yarrow Valley. Is that a kitbashed Pikestuff building in the foreground? I'll be doing a number of false-front buildings on the outside perimeter resembling that, but most likely I'll just use Evergreen corrugated sheet styrene.
My next mini-project is to assemble the New River kit. It'll only be a 'vanilla' Walthers structure, except it won't be the familiar aluminum color - I plan to paint it something like THIS
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
A Source for my Coking Coal
03/12/2006:
Here are some pics of the latest large structure I’ve added to the Iron Belt: an old favorite, the Walthers Cornerstone™ New River Coal Mine. This provides the origin of point-to-point coal traffic on my pike, which [of course] ends at the rotary dumper for the coke ovens.
I didn’t want this to be just another ‘vanilla’ out-of-the-box New River complex, so I did a few minor alterations. First, I painted the building sides ‘industrial’ green and the roofs black; also, I placed the truck tipple on the opposite side from the standard location. But most important, I installed tubes in the loading section to allow the pouring of granulated coal directly into the hopper cars below.
The Construction Process
As with all my styrene structure kits, I spray-painted the pieces in advance while still on the sprues [to make them easier to find at assembly time]. I some cases, roof pieces and wall sections were attached to the same sprue and were not easy to distinguish, so they wound up getting an undercoat of green which was later covered by flat black.
The first two photos show where I needed to widen the rectangular floor openings over the tracks to make room for the Plastruct tubes, and the round opening in the roof.
The next image gives you a general idea of what the tubes are designed for: Positioning a funnel for pouring-in powdered coal.
At this point, I figured I probably ought to verify that the tracks I had laid 6 months ago would line up correctly the building. As I expected, they did not; but what I hadn’t realized was how the latex covering I had applied would act like glue and make the tracks nearly impossible to loosen and reposition. As the next two photos show, I had to slide a thin metal ruler underneath the ties to pry the track loose from the Styrofoam sub-roadbed without any damage. The track survived OK, but the Styrofoam got chewed-up:
One additional [unpleasant] discovery I made: You can’t always trust the little ‘footprint’ diagram that Walthers prints on the boxes of some of their kits. I had to move my ‘loose’ backdrop walls back an extra inch, because the finished mine building is actually 13 inches deep, NOT 12 as the diagram led me to believe!
The Finished Model
Originally I didn’t even want to include the truck tipple, because as I mentioned before, I prefer to have my structures NOT resemble the Walthers catalogue/box pictures if I can avoid that. Then I decided, the auxiliary tipple with its conveyor added some nice complexity to the facility and it seemed a shame to let that go to waste. So I installed it on the opposite side from where Walthers designed for it:
I covered the original conveyor opening with a 1-inch square of Evergreen™ slatted-board sheet, to make it resemble the intake for a large fan.
I still need to apply some ‘cinder’ ballast to the tracks, but the is the very last thing on my installation checklist.
”Pay No Attention to that Hand Behind the Curtain…”
As I mentioned earlier, this structure provides a point of origin for running live coal loads to my coke ovens. Much as I would have loved to make everything animated and remote-controlled, I lack both the skill and the patience to do it that way at present. So I opted to use detachable, hand-loaded funnels instead.
[In the next few example photos, let’s pretend this is a limestone quarry instead of a coal mine – the coal I ordered hasn’t arrived yet.] Looking up close, the operator doesn’t even see the funnel…
…until stepping farther back:
The coal will be prepared in pre-measured amounts of approximately 1.5oz., enough to pile it in a single mound (3 for a 40-foot hopper, 4 for 50-footers).
Three ‘scoops’ yielded 3 mounds in this sample 40-foot B&O hopper car:
I don’t want to pile it too high, since the motion of the train will cause settling and I need to allow space for that.
Here is what happens when the loaded hopper reaches its destination: The car empties its load [via rotary dumper] into a waiting bucket below, and the coal is made available for another round trip:
This is the last of the large structures I plan to install on the layout in the near future, though I do plan to assemble some Kibri heavy machinery for the slag pit scene. Next on the list is to get the mainline track ballasted, then unpack the remainder of my mothballed rolling stock and put that on its new home.
03/12/2006:
Here are some pics of the latest large structure I’ve added to the Iron Belt: an old favorite, the Walthers Cornerstone™ New River Coal Mine. This provides the origin of point-to-point coal traffic on my pike, which [of course] ends at the rotary dumper for the coke ovens.
I didn’t want this to be just another ‘vanilla’ out-of-the-box New River complex, so I did a few minor alterations. First, I painted the building sides ‘industrial’ green and the roofs black; also, I placed the truck tipple on the opposite side from the standard location. But most important, I installed tubes in the loading section to allow the pouring of granulated coal directly into the hopper cars below.
The Construction Process
As with all my styrene structure kits, I spray-painted the pieces in advance while still on the sprues [to make them easier to find at assembly time]. I some cases, roof pieces and wall sections were attached to the same sprue and were not easy to distinguish, so they wound up getting an undercoat of green which was later covered by flat black.
The first two photos show where I needed to widen the rectangular floor openings over the tracks to make room for the Plastruct tubes, and the round opening in the roof.
The next image gives you a general idea of what the tubes are designed for: Positioning a funnel for pouring-in powdered coal.
At this point, I figured I probably ought to verify that the tracks I had laid 6 months ago would line up correctly the building. As I expected, they did not; but what I hadn’t realized was how the latex covering I had applied would act like glue and make the tracks nearly impossible to loosen and reposition. As the next two photos show, I had to slide a thin metal ruler underneath the ties to pry the track loose from the Styrofoam sub-roadbed without any damage. The track survived OK, but the Styrofoam got chewed-up:
One additional [unpleasant] discovery I made: You can’t always trust the little ‘footprint’ diagram that Walthers prints on the boxes of some of their kits. I had to move my ‘loose’ backdrop walls back an extra inch, because the finished mine building is actually 13 inches deep, NOT 12 as the diagram led me to believe!
The Finished Model
Originally I didn’t even want to include the truck tipple, because as I mentioned before, I prefer to have my structures NOT resemble the Walthers catalogue/box pictures if I can avoid that. Then I decided, the auxiliary tipple with its conveyor added some nice complexity to the facility and it seemed a shame to let that go to waste. So I installed it on the opposite side from where Walthers designed for it:
I covered the original conveyor opening with a 1-inch square of Evergreen™ slatted-board sheet, to make it resemble the intake for a large fan.
I still need to apply some ‘cinder’ ballast to the tracks, but the is the very last thing on my installation checklist.
”Pay No Attention to that Hand Behind the Curtain…”
As I mentioned earlier, this structure provides a point of origin for running live coal loads to my coke ovens. Much as I would have loved to make everything animated and remote-controlled, I lack both the skill and the patience to do it that way at present. So I opted to use detachable, hand-loaded funnels instead.
[In the next few example photos, let’s pretend this is a limestone quarry instead of a coal mine – the coal I ordered hasn’t arrived yet.] Looking up close, the operator doesn’t even see the funnel…
…until stepping farther back:
The coal will be prepared in pre-measured amounts of approximately 1.5oz., enough to pile it in a single mound (3 for a 40-foot hopper, 4 for 50-footers).
Three ‘scoops’ yielded 3 mounds in this sample 40-foot B&O hopper car:
I don’t want to pile it too high, since the motion of the train will cause settling and I need to allow space for that.
Here is what happens when the loaded hopper reaches its destination: The car empties its load [via rotary dumper] into a waiting bucket below, and the coal is made available for another round trip:
This is the last of the large structures I plan to install on the layout in the near future, though I do plan to assemble some Kibri heavy machinery for the slag pit scene. Next on the list is to get the mainline track ballasted, then unpack the remainder of my mothballed rolling stock and put that on its new home.
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4Starcstms
Member
Man thats ALOT of time, effort and even more talent thats gone into your models, and your layout. I'm very impressed, keep going back thru the photos, trying to let all the awesome ideas soak in, never know when they might be useful in the future.
Great job! Look forward to more updates
Great job! Look forward to more updates
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Well thank you for the kind words 4-Star, and welcome to the Forum!4Starcstms said:
Actually Rex, my contract with the UMW doesn't go into effect until construction on the mine is completely finished.RexHea said:
Gotta take measures to control all that coal dust otherwise I'll be nailed by OSHA...!
IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
03-22-2006
This has been a busy 10 days since my last update, but I'll try to get caught up on what I've done since then.
I had just installed my Walthers New River mine after modifying it to allow operators to pour live coal loads thru a funnel into waiting hopper car below. Well, the following Tuesday, some 'Black Beauty' brand coal slag [from Abrasives Depot] arrived. It is the perfect size for HO, and it looks great when loaded:
...only problem is, the loading process generates huge amounts of dust and spillage. So, while maintaining the capability to use the 'live' stuff, I want to pursue my Plan B of making homegrown chooch-style solid loads. These will have to fit very loosely inside the carbodies so they can fall out freely when the car is flipped in the rotary dumper. But I discovered another design flaw that had to be remedied: The retaining arms that hold the hopper in place, also prevent a solid load from falling out. I needed some way to secure the coal car without obstructing the fall path of the solid load.
First, I severed all 8 retaining arms (see photo diagram below); then I cemented on some 0.250"x0.250" styrene strip and drilled and tapped holes for some size 2-56 Hob-bits [Woodland Scenics] screws in them. The screws will exert a 'pinching' pressure on the upper side of the coal car to keep it from sliding out of the dumper.
To allow adequate clearance for a car to roll into place, the screws are twisted all the way back until the ends are flush with the dumper's inner wall:
...and when a car is in place, the screws are tightened:
I decided to use hex-head screws instead of the standard flat head type, since an operator can simply 'feel' for them with the hex wrench and not have to worry about trying to line the screwdriver up with the slot:
This end view shows how the screws really do keep the coal car from falling:
The BethGon stays in, but the load falls out:
Obviously, I'll paint the white styrene posts and severed retainer stubs Grimy Black to match the rest of the dumper!
Due to a few unexpected changes of plans this past weekend, I haven’t yet gotten around to making up all of the solid coal loads. Furthermore, painting and decaling three BethGons in the CSX ‘Confederate gray’ scheme took quite a bit longer than thought it would. (I’ll save those for Weekend Photo Fun. )
This has been a busy 10 days since my last update, but I'll try to get caught up on what I've done since then.
I had just installed my Walthers New River mine after modifying it to allow operators to pour live coal loads thru a funnel into waiting hopper car below. Well, the following Tuesday, some 'Black Beauty' brand coal slag [from Abrasives Depot] arrived. It is the perfect size for HO, and it looks great when loaded:
...only problem is, the loading process generates huge amounts of dust and spillage. So, while maintaining the capability to use the 'live' stuff, I want to pursue my Plan B of making homegrown chooch-style solid loads. These will have to fit very loosely inside the carbodies so they can fall out freely when the car is flipped in the rotary dumper. But I discovered another design flaw that had to be remedied: The retaining arms that hold the hopper in place, also prevent a solid load from falling out. I needed some way to secure the coal car without obstructing the fall path of the solid load.
First, I severed all 8 retaining arms (see photo diagram below); then I cemented on some 0.250"x0.250" styrene strip and drilled and tapped holes for some size 2-56 Hob-bits [Woodland Scenics] screws in them. The screws will exert a 'pinching' pressure on the upper side of the coal car to keep it from sliding out of the dumper.
To allow adequate clearance for a car to roll into place, the screws are twisted all the way back until the ends are flush with the dumper's inner wall:
...and when a car is in place, the screws are tightened:
I decided to use hex-head screws instead of the standard flat head type, since an operator can simply 'feel' for them with the hex wrench and not have to worry about trying to line the screwdriver up with the slot:
This end view shows how the screws really do keep the coal car from falling:
The BethGon stays in, but the load falls out:
Obviously, I'll paint the white styrene posts and severed retainer stubs Grimy Black to match the rest of the dumper!
Due to a few unexpected changes of plans this past weekend, I haven’t yet gotten around to making up all of the solid coal loads. Furthermore, painting and decaling three BethGons in the CSX ‘Confederate gray’ scheme took quite a bit longer than thought it would. (I’ll save those for Weekend Photo Fun.
)
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