Woodlawn Industrial Park (was Northeastern HO scale switching layout)

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I have a group of railfan friends coming over today so I cleaned up the train room for an operating session. I use an old HP laptop power supply to power my old DCS200 DCC box (I bought it in 2008!). The only thing is that there are now way too many wires so I need some kind of a shelf on which I can mount these pieces. Right now I'm using an old computer table on wheels.

Also, I just got something I have wanted for along time, a wireless throttle. I have used phone apps in the past along with JMRI but its fiddly to set up and get going. Its just much easier to use a Digitrax wireless throttle. I bought a UT6D throttle. I just realized I don't have any AA batteries so I'll have to make a trip to CVS to get some :)

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I was able to try out the UT6D throttle and it is a winner! Very easy to use and worked perfectly without any setup. Some years ago, I operated on a friend's layout with a wireless throttle and it was a real eye opener so I have wanted to do the same ever since.

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The next step is to work on the junkyard scene. I was looking for inspiration and came across this great pic from Model Railroader from Lance Mindheim's Miami layout:

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My goal is to create a scene like this in this triangle. I have mocked up the scene below. I will need a lot of scrap metal to fill up this space!

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The junk yard scene is coming together nicely. The grey area is supposed to be the loading area for the scrap gondolas . I also used some wooden strips from a grade crossing set.

The fences were a part of a Walthers piggy back loading ramp set. I weathered it a little and installed the pieces. I am pleased with the way they look.

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Spent a lot of time ballasting yesterday and made good progress. Finished two turnouts and a couple of fairly long stretches of track. Not much track left. It takes me quite a while to get this right on just a 2 ft by 12 ft layout - I don't know how some people are able to build such large layouts so quickly!

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There is one corner of the layout near the junkyard for which I have been trying to find a good use but nothing seemed to be working.

Inspiration hit a few minutes ago when I was driving home on the NJ Turnpike near Newark Airport. I noticed a dirt lot with a big stack of empty containers and suddenly realized that that would be a great use for that location. Even better, I remembered that I had a whole bunch of containers lying around so I mocked it up and it looks just right. I just need to install some paving and create a sign advertising containers.

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Here is a first pass at the container depot. As luck would have it I remembered that I had started building a Faller kit for an office made out of 20 ft containers - I still need to complete the kit but it looks like it will be perfect for the scene.

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This was my inspiration for the scene. Its on the east side of I-95 right in the middle of the NS Oak Island yard.

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And I'm done with the final structure for this layout, a Walthers modern water. I saw that there was a provision for a light on top of the tower so installed a red LED there. Wiring the LED was not easy but well worth the effort. For a change, I did not mess up the decals too much and came out looking the way I wanted them to. I have ordered some Microsol to make the decal sit better on the water tower - I should get it by tomorrow. Just need to add some ground cover in this area.

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I ran through a few typical switching tasks and wow did I have fun on my own layout (even if I say so myself :)). I have a group of friends coming over to operate the layout next weekend so I need to get a few tasks set up in advance.

Here is one typical task. The attached pic shows the initial state of the layout. Switcher has arrived from Oak Island with a few cars.

Instructions: drop off tank car TILX 905 in the oil siding. Pick up empties tank cars ULTX 216 and 196 (currently in the oil siding). Empty gondola 419 to be dropped in the scrap yard. Box car 545 to be left on the team track (siding with loading ramp in foreground). Took me about 20 minutes running the loco at a realistic speed.

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Just for fun, I tried running a Siemens ER20 diesel. This is a German model that I got cheap in a flea market. Unfortunately the NEM flanges are so deep that the loco runs on the ties on my code83 track! I will need to find someone with a lathe to turn down the wheels to roughly RP25 dimensions.

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One more exotic from my collection. I bought this loco when I visited Australia back in 2009. Its a DL class which is basically a locally manufactured SD40-2 in an enclosed body that sort of looks like an FP45. It is a great runner and looks great.

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Almost done with ground cover! Finished the ground cover around the water tank and created the paved area for the oil siding. Not much left.

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