I am starting to get into some super detailing projects for the HO division of the Grande Valley Railway.Since this is uncharted territory for me at this point I am starting with some old TYCO and Bachmann cars.First order of business is replacing some grab irons/ladder rungs with .010" round rod.A bit frustrating but sure makes a big difference in the looks of the car.Here is a pic of my very first project with more to follow as I make progress. :mrgreen:



For what it's worth the Athearn PS-2 floor is a direct P-N-P for the TYCO shell which gets you screw mounted trucks and body mount couplers.

I started this layout on Thanksgiving day 2000 and have been working on it steady since then. The layout is showing the Milwaukee Road in Wisconsin from Tunnel City to Portage in the 1950's, late steam early diesel in HO scale. It is built in two rooms and will cover a space 16' by 22' around the walls and a peninsula. Here is an overview pic of the yard in Portage. It is 2' wide and 14' long.



I will be adding more pic's and catch up to where I am building now. I hope you enjoy the show and come along for the ride!!



8-)

Faraway, great shot, looks so real

catt, I always wondered when Accurail was going to make the grain cars.

Here is a pic of Main St. downtown New Lisbon Wi.





8-)

Just in case you haven't noticed, the Big Blue logo at the top of the page here has been changed for the holiday. Santa is driving the steam engine accompanied by Thomas. Just our way of keep up with the holiday season.

Hope these are of interest relating to rail industries.

Kuiken Brothers Lumber
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Safely uncable a center beam railcar
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Railcar unloading safety video
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Steve

When I first pics of my layout I included just about all areas of the layout.
So now I decided to post some shots showing some of the details that I included.
First is from the oil dealer. The two trucks shown are 1953-55 Peterbilts that were made by IMEX.These were all metal and at the time I could
not find any straight trucks with flat beds so i cut the sides from the trucks and added floors and loads as seen in the truck in background.
The trailer in the front was made by using empty pill bottles that I cut to the desired profile,re-assembled,sanded and painted.

Next up are two pics of trailers that I built using container trailers.I think they were made by Athearn. These came with a deck sections. I cleaned up the bottoms,cut to length,usually 38-40".
I then adjusted the length on the frame and in some cases altered the wheel arrangements. In the case of these two trailers,a tri-axle and a spread axle.

The next pic is the front view of Columbia Mfg. Co. They make steel drums. The fork truck is a metal kit. Can't remember who made it.

Lastly is the rail barge and tug. Because the park boarders a river I thought it only fitting to add these details to the layout.
I made the barge working from various pics. It is made using .080 styrene,nickle silver rails and some small diameter dowels for the tie downs.
The tug was also made from various pics. It was made from .040 and .020 styrene,and a variety of commercial castings. i also added a wooded deck.

This pic came as an after thought. Pallets are used in many industries on a layout so I figured I would add a close up of the pallets made at Express Pallet. For anyone who might be interested,
I make my own in HO and in 3 sizes 40"x48", 48"x48" and 48"x96".

Enjoy
BobS
And I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving

Greetings!

With Cane River having gone as far as it realistically can, it has reached the point where replacing it would be less work than trying to work it into a new layout.

As such, I've been working on a new layout plan that will be developed at as slow a pace as it requires to be done right - benchwork built to requirements in open frame style, hand build track and turnouts, fully wired point blades, controlled by turnout motors and fully capable of computer control.

The idea is to have a "round the walls" layout that is divided into 3 sections - 1) the mainline run and classification yard, 2) upper deck industrial switching area, and 3) lower deck switching area and hidden staging.

I have the basics of the track plan envisioned, and have gone for a much less "British" approach to the layout design and taken as much inspiration from US practice as possible.

The mainline run will be built first, with the switching areas coming later. Handbuilt track will allow me much more realism over using store bought Peco track, and will also allow me to fit the plan to the space available, and not be forced to fit the plan to the track available!

I have the track plans for the upper deck and lower deck switching areas, as well as a basic 3D rendering of the mainline run.

Track level on the two decks will be separated by a height of 10", which should give me plenty of room to work as well as allowing for a lot of mainline run to drop down the distance between the decks. The mainline section will be - in essence, a fully scenic oval style helix, with level sections at various spots to give the locos something of a break from the 2% gradient it will mostly need.

I'm not too worried about train lengths, as those will be limited by what my locos can handle on the grades in question, as well as the storage space in the hidden staging and the classification yard - plus I don't have the money for 50+ car trains!

Anyway, enough waffling from me, here are the initial track plans and 3D rendering.

Top deck industrial switching district:


This will connect to the track on the top level of the mainline run. On the 3D rendering the connecting track can be seen in the very bottom right of the plan.

Lower deck staging and switching district, with an interchange with a secondary shortline railroad:


This will connect to the track on the bottom of the mainline run. On the 3D rendering, the switching district will connect to the track exiting the main layout on the bottom right of the plan - it will be the left most of the two tracks. The hidden storage tracks will connect to the right most of the two tracks.

3D rendering of the mainline run - to show this as a SCARM trackplan from above would show nothing but a jumbled mess of tracks, it needs to be seen in 3D to see what it's all about:



I intend to add more switching areas to the mainline run, including a depot with freight house, a few mills and factories, as well as a coal mine and possibly a logging area with a sawmill. The large expanse of green between the classification yard and the tracks behind it will feature a river separating the two areas, giving an idea of two railroads running on opposite sides of a river gorge, as inspired by one of the layouts in Great Model Railways 2014 - The Virginian and Ohio (particularly the image shown on page 26).

Enough waffling from me - work will commence slowly but surely, and will kick off in earnest at the start of the new year.

Let me know what you guys think.

A pic of the Trans Siberian Railway Dining car

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Hi, I hope this is the right channel to ask this but I was wondering if anyone knew of resources or wished to comment directly on what cars might be dealt with at a team track and using what equipment. I'm particular interested in gondolas and center beam cars.

I can see how these might be dealt with but is there I. Fact a prototype for this at a gram track? Any references would be great.

As a UK based modeller new yo US Railroad practice I'm finding it hard to pick up my understanding as I design my switching layout so I hope you don't mind me asking what might be daft questions.

I'm also interested in operations at industries. I found <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://oscalewcor.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/INSPIRATION">http://oscalewcor.blogspot.co.uk/search ... NSPIRATION</a><!-- m --> a very useful description of car activities at smaller industries. Anyone found anything similar?

Many thanks,

Steve.