In the Mykawa West industrial park, there is a company called Thorpe Insulation. They have 2 buildings, one looks like a manufacturing building, the other is a warehouse. From their website, it appears that they do industrial insulation on such things as piping, vessels, and boilers. Here are pics of the warehouse.

Here is the construction thread for my son's very first layout. It's in N scale, and he's 5. A bit early for something so small, but I think he can handle it. He has always been ahead of the curve with regards to his fine motor skills & artistic ability. Plus, it'll be a great tool for teaching him responsibility, keeping his love of trains going strong, and it'll be fun for old Dad to build . Enough jibber-jabber, here are two pictures of the benchwork, taken just this afternoon.

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As you can see, the benchwork is a simple frame of 1x3s screwed together, with an MDF top glued & screwed in place. This fits down overtop an IKEA table we've had for about 8 years. It was our first dining room table, made for an apartment dweller. The top opens out to double in size, but in this case it'll stay folded over. It didn't really have a home in our current house so I'm glad to use it. Surface height is about 30". Dimensions of the benchwork are 26" x 42-3/4".

Up next, a track plan. Not sure when I can post that as I need some time to set it up when the kiddo is not around and I'm not at work. This will be a surprise from Santa, afterall. Well, Santa is providing the trains. He asked me to be his helper and build this layout. That's my Christmas present.

Galen

Thought I'd pass this along... nice looking layout which appears to be based on early Conrail.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbqfs9rW4nw

I finally got around to dropping some paint and dry transfers onto my waycar. It was a thread back on the old forum a couple years ago. I'll post a few of the construction shots as a refresher:

The pedestals under construction:


Pedestals in place, but out of focus:


Railings in place...they are straighter than they appear. I flattened the tops with a hammer and anvil, and then drilled out the holes for the vertical posts:


With more of the hardware in place:


Lettered:


Sloppy underframe paint:


You can sort of see the canvas roof:


I haven't really touched this car for a while as I made a few mistakes along the way...it was a learning experience. It isn't up to the level of my current work...with its crooked trussrods, bowed sides, and ugly doors/end beams. Still, it is good enough to be do well as filler on my future layout. I still have to touch up the paint, add the brake gear, add the vent, and create an interior.

As a side note, here's a photo of a car that I've recently been working on:


And several of my roof castings. The production castings are better than the styrene master due to being both stiffer and heavier. I only had one real waste casting...which I pulled from the mold too quickly. This roof design was common to 3 cars on the South Park, with an additional two having a stretched version and a 6th that was like a half sibling.

The layout shown below was my intention. The benchwork is all completed, backdrops are up etc.... But when I laid the plan out on the foam and visualized it. I wasn't happy with it. I want to keep the layout benchwork intact, holes in the walls are no issue. Anyone have any suggestions?

What I would like to see.
N - Scale
Era 1965-1972
Appalachian based coal road
Some switching to keep things intresting.
Decent mainline run.(double track is fine)
Enough room for scenery
Minimal hidden track.
Mostly coal trains,although some freight. And one RDC set.
Would like to include a small town scene.
no visable curves under 14" would be nice too.

Most of my locomotives are 4 axle, only 3 six axle units on the road.

Thanks for any help it is appreciated.
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Here is another building in the Mykawa West Industrial Park. It is apparently vacant at the moment, although there were trucks parked out in front.

Another Industry from Mykawa West: American Filler Metals - Supplier of welding rods and wire and such. The spur looks to be no longer in use at thiis time.

My photos concentrated on the railroad side of the building.. If anyone wants more of the front, I can get them.

Not far from where I work, there are two industrial parks which are served by rail. The area which I call "Mykawa West" has around 20 large insustries ranging from chemical distributors to plastics to textiles to scrap metal. The second industrial park, which I call "Hobby Industrial Park" because it is right across from Hobby Airport, has a dozen or so industries which range from plastics to warehouses to chemicals to potato processing.

I occasionally drive the roads through the areas and take photos for my later use on my layout. Here are some pics of Consolidated Containers which makes all manner of plastic bottles and containers. They receive plastic pellets by rail and ship products out by truck.

If anyone wants pics of the other structures and spurs, I'll be happy to oblige.

Hi
I got a kind of simple question, on the hill of my layout I plan on putting 3 brick structures all in there own fensed in area in the late 20's era as well as a few other wooden structures . Question is most brick building like in the dpm gold series kits show as red bricked, were these old buildings always red colored weathered darker?