Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

Been getting a few more details added as well as finishing off a few jobs that had been put on the back burner...
More expansion gaps in the concrete, weeds in the expansion gaps, added weathering to the concrete surface, oil stains and spills, plus more general litter around the Miami Produce Centre...

Below, expansion gaps, weeds, trash and weathering all added to improve the look...

Below, oil stains and spills...

The little people at work...

Still have plenty to do and the NMRA Convention date is looming...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Got some more detailing done today...

This included scratch building hand rails for the stairs behind the corn syrup tanks, making concrete hardstand for under the tanks and securing the tanks to the hardstand.

Handrails made from Evergreen styrene... I will leave these white, although I may added some rust to them in places...

The corn syrup tanks are fully bedded in to the layout. This is one of those jobs that has been on the back burner since February 2021 !

Just need to add a few more details around these tanks before I call this area done.

One of the other detailing jobs to do was to add a dumped car to the scene. A while back I purchased some really cheap cars from Casula Hobbies. I think I got 6 for $20.00.
The plastic is a real pain to cut, which I manage to door as I wanted to remove a door.
Once I removed the door and cleaned the sides up, I set about reconstructing the windscreen frame, the window frame on the door and scratch building a bench seat.

The car had to be painted up again and then weathered using paints and powders. Once this had dried, I set about smashing the windscreen by drilling a few holes and then using the scalpel, create the cracks associated with damaged windscreens...

The car was then bedded into the layout and I added some bushes behind and tall grasses around. Some trash and old car tyres were added to the scene to complete it.

Looking down at the car, you can see the door in the grass (top centre). Note that the PVA is still wet in these photos. Should look good tomorrow !

Slowly getting there...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Only three more sleeps until the NMRA Convention and I am working hard to get my layout up to scratch...

Backscenes and lighting rig is in, with the LED strip that I had hanging from the ceiling now fixed to the layout.

The LED strip/channel is hung onto the supports via little hooks that are secured to the aluminium channel.

...and the lights work fine !

I have added another NCE Power Cab Panel to the peninsula as this location will make it easier to operate the layout. I'll still keep the original NCE PCP in its original location for if I ever get the urge just to switch out the food industry sidings only, or use these modules as a stand alone layout.

I decided on removing the hinge blocks from the original two baseboards (see here : https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...es-and-a-food-industry.5350/page-3#post-88567) and I added the cabinet connectors to the baseboard frame. This will make transporting the modules easier and I don't have to flip it upside down !
Having removed the hinge blocks also made it easier to add a back to the factory on the front edge of the layout. One sheet of styrene painted black was glued to the walls with some internal support.

The small triangular platform on the far left end of the layout was detailed with a corrugated iron fence and a future restoration. Car panels can be found on pallets, leaning against the fence etc and I decided to put the body up on cinder blocks (breeze blocks) for added detail !

Tomorrow I have a couple of smaller jobs to do, then it will be a task of pulling the layout down and setting it up in the lounge room, where it will stay until Friday. I will give the track a clean and make sure all is good to go for the convention.

Cheers, Gary.

 

It certainly has ! As you know, it will be on display at the NMRA Convention, so I really only have one more day to do the detailing...

Cheers, Gary.

 

One thing I was missing on the layout was scrap metal at the Ferrous Processing Plant. With that I needed scrap loads for at least two gondolas, so I set about making a few scrap loads and a decent pile of scrap for the processing plant.

I measured up some balsa wood to fit inside the 45' long gondolas which I raised closer with a few horizontal strips glued to the bottom. This way I didn't have to have heaps of material in the cars.
I checked out all my off cuts of styrene and other bits and pieces that I could use as a load and super glued them onto the balsa wood base.

Once dry, I spray painted the loads black to disguise the false base and also to give the weathering powders some tooth.

Weathering was easy. It was weathering powders and isopropyl alcohol simply splattered on with an old paint brush. Subsequent layers of colour were added to gain the desired look. I think I'll touch up some of the edges of the load with some silver Tamiya weather compound.

The loads don't look too bad in the gondolas...

Next up I had to form a pile of scrap for the processing plant.

A 1mm thick sheet of styrene was cut out and a back was added using the curved off cuts. To this I super glued aluminium foil to make the base pile of the scrap.

Again, the spares & offcuts box came in handy for the various scrap. All this was glued on with super glue.

Like the gondola loads, this was painted black...

...and weathered using the same method for the gondola loads...

The pile of svcrap doesn't look too bad under the roof of Ferrous Processing...

Now, what else do I have to do...?

Cheers, Gary.

 

The night before the Convention and after testing the layout, a short reared its ugly head.

By the process of elimination, I went through all the modules one by one until I found the module that was giving me problems (to put it politely...)
I isolated this module and used a set of jumper leads from the layout to this isolated module and I couldn't see or figure out where the short was so once again, the process of elimination started again...

I went through and cut all the black dropper wires and slowly soldered them back together, until I found the dodgy one. I tested the layout after soldering all wires back in place except for this one and the module ran okay... I say okay as the three was point was working to the left, to the right but not straight ahead...

I worked the red wires under the three way and there was still nothing... What a PITA !

There was only one thing I could do..., replace the three way. Yep, that's what I did as I had a spare. This one was already wired for DCC too as it came from my former Callington layout, 'Kelly Bray'.

Out with the old...

In with the new (well 2nd hand...)

...and finally finished ballasting it up at 10.00pm...

Well, hopefully no more headaches until Sunday evening when I get home from the convention and have myself a huge drink... Might even pass out....

Cheers, Gary.

 

I was absolutely blown away tonight for taking out the NMRA 'John Baker' Award for 'Best Model of an American Prototype.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Philip.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you mate. I much appreciate your kind comment.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you kindly.

 

Thank you kindly.

Cheers, Gary.

 

It was a pleasure to catch up with Dave Wells yesterday and we had a great day of shopping (Casula Hobbies), trying to catch a few photos of illusive intermodal trains, lunch and a running session on my layout followed by a visit to Gormo's home and a running session on his layout.

Dave had some very nice words to say about my layout and you can hear them here : https://www.facebook.com/100011037760309/videos/pcb.6905281432870299/1053769769384451

Thanks mate.

Over at Gormo's we had fun operating his layout, with Gormo at the helm of Great Chesterford, myself at Little Barfield and Dave on Bamford. It was a great afternoon, but just too short.

Thank you Gormo for your kind hospitality and Mrs Gormo for the cup of tea and cake !

Cheers, Gary.