So last weekend I dedicated a picture to Grandeman, this weekend it goes out to Ken L. Its not quite done yet, I still need the decals, and the roof needs another coat of black but otherwise she looks good alongside BNSF #7307.
Wow
Josh, that SD40-2 on the left looks mighty familiar!
Steve, sure wish I had the stamina to accomplish what you've done this weekend. Honey-dues
and MRR work - those two always seem mutually exclusive for me. That peninsula is looking great BTW, amazing what can be done on a 13" strip of real estate!
OK I promised you guys some pictures, and I wasn't lyin' - here they are:
I did some shuffling [plus a bit of cutting and re-painting] of structures, and eliminated 3 major deficiencies of my layout. First of all, on my point-to-point coal trains, I had to split the train in two sections to load all the hoppers, and do some convoluted switching operations just to get the train pointed the right direction. I wanted a flood loader where I could load all the cars in a single train: Shove them in, pull them out - then do a 'runaround' on the passing siding. I already had the flood loader - it was an oversized coke bunker on my blast furnace highline. So I repainted it to match the New River mine, then surgically removed the original 'tipple' section which left me with the tall part, and
voila:
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Click here to see a BEFORE image of the mine)
Now I bet you're asking, What about the coke bunker? Not to worry - the original New River complex had
just the thing I needed:
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Click here to see a BEFORE image of the coke bunker)
I may end up reducing it from 3 to 2 bins, we'll see...
On to Problem #2: The ingot stripper. Steel mills in the era I'm modeling (mid- to late-1990's) rarely, if ever, use the ingot process anymore; they've gone to continuous casting. So I decided to put someting else in that spot: A
finished coils shipping facility like I had on my previous layout.
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Click here to see a BEFORE image of this view)
...and here is an END view:
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Click here to see a BEFORE image of this view)
This also took care of Problem #3: No "signature" structure/spur where I could spot the cars that deliver my final product - rolled steel coils. Now every freight car coming into the mill yard has someplace to go! I can assemble/receive a non-coal train of 16 cars (longest I can fit on the passing siding) to run between the mill and an off-layout staging yard, which I will build when I find another home for the clutter on the shelves...