Sunshine, Palm Trees and a Food Industry...

I bought myself a back up plan this afternoon if I can't do any railway modelling...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Well, two new models arrived this afternoon...



Cheers, Gary.

 

Not a lot to report on as I'm still waiting for the ceiling repairs. I have started to cut up some 3mm grey board for a few lineside industries that will form part of the Miami industrial canyon. No photos yet.

Over the weekend I went looking for a few more tank cars for the layout as I have an area where I can extend a line and model something similar to this photo below.

Unlike the prototype with the point towards the right hand side, I will be reversing this and continuing the line from the red/grey factory (card board packaging plant) and bring the track into the corner module, parallel to the main line.

With a length of flex track, I pinned it down to see how it looks.

This is where it would join the existing shelf layout.

How it would look with a few tank cars on it.

This scene would help create another visual on the layout as only the back corner would have a building/customer. This would also allow for more switching at this end of the layout too.

Cheers, Gary.

 

I didn't add the photo of the tank cars to the above post, so...

These are 23,500 gallon ACF Tank Cars. They were designed to handle food (starches, oils, syrups etc), chemicals or petroleum products and can be found throughout North America. I haven't decided what commodity they will carry, but I'm looking at either chemical or petroleum.
One thing I know for sure is that I will be repainting these, removing the Honeymead signage altogether. So it may just be a patch out on the tank side and weathering.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks for your valuable information Keith, much appreciated !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Been busing yesterday afternoon and evening, as well as this afternoon... The steel rule, tape measure, rule, pencil, card and lots of googling google maps has been the work load on the layout for the last two days understanding the buildings that exist along the Miami down town spur.

Once I knew what I needed to make this realistically near enough accurate, I set about making some measurements on the layout first where the curved buildings will sit, forming part of the Miami canyon.

I needed to know what the overhang/clearances were needed for the longest of my freight cars. Out came the Sharpie and my longest car which happens to be another tank car and on the inside track radius I made a line in conjunction with the middle of the car. On the outside of the track radius, I marked it up using the end of the car.

A pics of my clearances.

The dotted line is another 21mm (scale 6') further out from the darker clearance line. Here is a closer look.

Once I worked out that, I could measure some straight lines along the outer clearance line (dotted). These lines form the foundation and size of the individual wall sections making up the building. You can see this clearly in this photo...

Next up was to translate these lateral measurements to paper then onto the 3mm thick grey board. I determined the heights of the buildings from previous models I had already built, with one being slightly taller for visual interest.
After cutting the wall sections, they were scored either on the outside or the inside depending on where they sat along the curved line.

These photos demonstrate this...

End walls were created the same way, although no curvature !

As you can see above, one building is missing a wall. This will be added as I don't want that building finishing off with an awkward pointed corner. It will be treated similar the the taller building(right hand side).


The next building I have started on is a fairly long building, which is inspired by the Salco building. As you can see in the photo, the spur comes off the main at an angle and the building is built around to suit the old track.

One thing I had to determine was wall section widths and I played around with this using a strip of MDF with different measurements drawn on to it to resemble the buttresses of the building between the panels.

This first pic shows the vertical lines drawn at 56mm (scale 16') apart and from this I can work out where the loading/unloading doors are situated in relation to the box cars.

Unfortunately when I placed three box cars beside this template, I found that the buttress lines were where I need to put doors. I flipped the MDF over and had another go, this time with 50mm spacings, which worked out perfectly for two coupled 50' box cars. I have added another door a little further away that will allow for either another 50' or 60' box car.

You can see on these photos where I placed an X between the wall buttress lines to indicate door placement.The first two photos show the 50' box cars...

The 60' box car...

The gap between the 50' box car and the 60' box car...

Again, 3mm grey board was cut into the required strips, the front and back scored to allow me to bend the walls slightly like the prototype. Shorter end sections were also cut to size.

Now I have most the walls cut, apart from altering the wall on one of the curved buildings, I have to work out door heights, window placements and more...

Cheers, Gary.

 

Yesterday afternoon and evening I was playing around with the ideas of buildings for the peninsula section of the layout. One thing that I kept thinking about and was bugging me, before committing to any such design/build was train storage. It's all very well and good to run trains end to end, but if there is no escape or rest of the world, where do the trains go ?? A few friends on some of the US railway modelling facebook groups hinted at this too.

So, what to do....??

Well I know what type of industry I would like on one side of the peninsula, but what about the other side ?? This image below is what I have in mind for one side...

A track that leads into more of an open area with a fair amount of hardstand around it. Basically tracks buried into concrete. Lance Mindheim has modelled this well on his layout...

So, which side of the divider on the peninsula will this go ?? Top or bottom ??

If you look at the first photo above, you'll see one track running across to the loading/unloading dock, and a track or a former track running parallel. I was originally going to put this on the top side of the divider, but I had change my mind and decided to place it on the bottom side. What I can do is to splay the tracks apart to allow one line to run to the dock and the other out into the hardstand area, although the lot will be buried in concrete.

So, that solves one issue... Now, what about train storage ??

Because I'll only be running short trains, I have decide to use the top side of the peninsula as a yard. This will mean adding two sets of points and allow for three sidings. Of course the siding will be variable lengths due to the points. This is ok as it still gives me enough room to run a short 3 car train and loco into the shortest siding. I may even incorporate a drop down sector plate off the end that will allow the engine to run around the train...

Here is the track plan with the changes in place...

All these changes should keep me busy over the weekend... Then it's back to structure building !

Cheers, Gary.

 

On Friday afternoon I was in the city picking up some more 3mm box board and whilst in there, I stopped by Hobbyco and purchased two Peco Streamlined small left hand points to use in the fiddle yard.

Before I could start, I needed to purchase a packet of code 100 rail joiners, so it was a trip to Casula Hobbies for them, some Evergreen Styrene and an unsuspecting C38 (see other thread : https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/index.php?threads/didnt-expect-this-in-my-shopping-bag.5955/).

Now with all this in my kit (track & rail joiners), I could start with working out exactly where I wanted the first set of points to be located, keeping in mind I want to maximise space to hold enough rolling stock. Luckily for me, the original curve is pretty much identical to the curvature of the small points, so that made the job easier and I won't have to make modifications to the building I started on earlier in the week.

Once I had cut the track to install the first set of points, the rest just rolled on...

The three fiddle yard roads are long enough to hold four wagons with the longest holding an engine as well.

On the other side of this board, I measured up how much space I could use up as I want the tracks separate from each other. I mentioned earlier that these tracks will be embedded in concrete hard stand.

I also worked out how big of a building I want and the length. The building will be low relief with a 40mm deep loading dock and a 40mm deep building beyond the dock.

This pic shows the dock roughly in place...

Now all this is done, I set about on building the rest of the building. Like the buildings in my previous post, they are constructed from 3mm box board.
A couple of pics of the build so far...

To stop the edges of the card going all furry, I applied CA to all the edges. These door apertures are solid like styrene !

The back of the main wall has had supports glued in to support the roof.

I have started on the loading dock roof. This is made from Evergreen styrene. I used Board & Battern #4545 for the roof.,

H Beam #283 (2.5mm) for the roof supports, C Chanel #263 (2.5mm) to frame the edge in. A strip of #142 (1mm square) was used between one edge of the roofing material and the H beam to give the roof some fall.

So, that's as much as I got done over the weekend.... Never enough hours in the day. Besides, I need to rest my hands from all that cutting I have been doing !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thank you Gormo.

I use a Stanley knife, one with a pointed blade, not curved. Approximately 6 swipes with the blade gets through the card, of course with firm pressure. I always use a mat underneath when cutting to stop the card from delaminating underneath.

The two small points were perfect for the job. I was considering a curved point (SL-87) and a small point, but the large curved point would have changed the radii of the curve too much, plus it would have impacted on the yard length.

Cheers, Gary.

 

Don't know about first class Toto, but I'll take your praise !

Cheers, Gary.

 

Each afternoon/evening I do a little more work on the scratch build.

Yesterday I added some small squarish shapes to the face of the building every 50mm and these will be for the awning roof supports. The awning roof has had holes drilled in it along the inner front edge. These holes on the face of the building and the awning correspond. Eventually I will make stirrups (?) or rods that hold the awning up. See diagram...

Later that evening, I used some 1mm diameter styrene rod (Evergreen Styrene #211) and some tulle (wedding veil) to make six individual sliding caged doors. I laid out and glued (CA) a length of rod to the tulle and gave this 30mins to cure. Next I cut the vertical poles to 40mm (used a chopper to make sure they are all the same length) and secured them to the bottom rail. Once these had taken hold, another length of rod was glued in across the top. I allowed that to sit all night and all day whilst I was at work.

Whilst that sat about curing, I added a few pieces of 2mm angle (Evergreen Styrene #292) to the large door apertures. This too cured overnight,

Tonight I cut the individual gates apart and made up a few roller doors from corrugated styrene sheet (Evergreen Styrene #4526)

I added to strengthening rails across the gates and also the small top tabs. The tabs will be for the rollers that ride the door track shown in the top diagram and in the following photos.

The sliding gate/cage track is 1mm x 0.75mm styrene strip (Evergreen Styrene #132). Several three millimeter long pieces of strip were cut and glued to a strip full length of the area above the doors. The rail supports were glued flat and the rail glued vertically.

The 3mm pieces act as rail supports and once the glue had cured, they were all cut back to approximately 1.5mm stubs. This full strip was the glued onto the face of the building 1.5mm above the doors.

Well, that's enough eye strain for the night. More to come soon.

Cheers, Gary.