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 Posted - May 24 2014 : 6:32:03 PM
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SO here are some pictures of the 4x8 layout I have been building since 2007. I think it should be done by, I dunno, 2020 or something. I'm very slow and I never seem to have time, money, and a local supplier at the same time.
Overview with the background shopped out to make it look cooler:
There it is, my train set. Yes, it's a train set, it's a big toy that I have a lot of fun with. I've had round-the-wall layouts and shelf-switcher layouts, but when I went to build this one I went to the 4x8 because that was the design that gave me the most fun. It's self-contained and not psychologically overwhelming. This is important for a busy working man with a family and all kinds of irons in the fire.
It's built somewhat low. My old layouts were eye-level, but I wanted something my kid (now kidS) could see and have fun with. It's built with polished brass and steel snap-track, because I had a lot of it. I let the track plan grow by laying an oval, no nails, on flat plywood. I would add track and run it. If it didn't feel right, I changed it. None of it got nailed down until I was ready. My original plan was to replace it all with flex and cork, but by that time, there was nobody in town selling cork, and the brass worked fine, so it's still there.
I wanted to avoid the modern standard MR-plan 4x8 with a view block down the middle, which looks OK in magazine photos but can be a little hokey in real life. Instead, I decided to make little focal-point scenes that could draw attention and allow the rest of the layout to serve as a background. We are pretty good at ignoring irrelevant information that way - this layout isn't terribly easy to photograph, but the effect is good in real life.
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 6:39:28 PM
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Cool, show a closer look at some of the scenes, please.
Regards john
I fear that when I die, I will start voting Democrat. <> Junior
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 6:43:43 PM
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I like it because:
quote:...it's a big toy that I have a lot of fun with...I went to the 4x8 because that was the design that gave me the most fun...
Originally posted by Autobus Prime - May 24 2014 : 6:32:03 PM
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The staff at MR would probably choke, but you are proof of their assertion that "Model Railroading is Fun!"
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:00:36 PM
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Here we have a closeup of the industrial flats, down by the river, in the city of Johnson Furnace.
Here's an overview of the same area.
This area took a lot of reworking before the track plan seemed right, and it still needs a lot of work. The spur across the river is eventually going to serve a brewery modeled after one that used to exist in Meadville, very tall and narrow and built into a hillside. Right now, the Transformers are renting the track to park their stuff. The large tree is made from sedum, foam, and a twig. I need to make more of these to line the little river here. The turntable is something I never planned to have, but the Atlas one came up for cheap, at a train show, so I squeezed it in. Its such a hokey thing,that Atlas turntable, but it's so convenient. I tried to add some prototype authenticity with some random sheds, a random workbench, a random pile of junk, and the usual assortment of brake-shoe and brake-hose crates. The Plasticville station is hokey too, but it was 50 cents, and somehow the silly little station looks right by the silly little river and under the great big tree...
The eternal Tru-Scale/Atlas/IHC/everybody else modern factory is eventually going to have a taller, older, brick section behind it, with a freight door squeezed into the setback where the truck is parked. Behind that, under the not-yet-built bridge to downtown, is going to be a very old stone remnant of the water-powered mill that I am imagining used to stand in that spot. The wide spot in the river there is the remnant of the old pond.
The coal station is scratchbuilt from an old Eugene LeDoux article, and being used with the LL general store as part of a rural coal-feed-fuel dealership. I'm thinking of adding a Tyco coal dump across the tracks in the empty lot. :)
That tunnel doesn't really exist. ^_^ The end on the right doesn't exist at all, it's going to be camouflaged by more trees. The end on the left is actually a railroad running through downtown Johnson Furnace in a deep cut, with a station up in town and some elevators visible.
Edited by - Autobus Prime on May 24 2014 7:14:41 PM
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:08:34 PM
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oh wow! You has the Gobot Road Ranger over there 
I got one too 
oh neat You got the Transformer train & A Gobot back there too
Edited by - microbusss on May 24 2014 7:10:05 PM
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:28:38 PM
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quote:
That's Prime legends-size Cliffjumper with the TF train. ^_^ Road Ranger is cool, I wish both of mine weren't so worn...
Now for the railroad's major online customer, the industrial complex in Shaw's Landing.
This was one of the major things I wanted, a big, sketchy, mostly wooden factory with a vaguely agricultural appearance, the kind of thing you see in rural western PA, that looks like a spark would make it go up like tinder. There is something always vaguely unclear about these places. It's never too easy to figure out what they make. It's probably something nasty like arsenic trioxide or asbestos board or radium paint. I based this around the good old AHM/IHC/LifeLike factory which is based on one of the earlier and perhaps less whimsical FSM structures...I found it for cheap. On the one side (near end of layout in the overview) is a Tyco piggyback loader, modified to be vaguely almost realistic with a tin IHC shed I found for a dollar. The building that is just laid in place is a power plant, under construction from balsa wood and Scale Scenes textures and window details. It's going to have a tall chimney and a foundation set into the hilside. Near the yard is the tank-farm area, with a dike, a stone wall, and a lack of tanks. On the other side is a veeeery tightly curved-back track to what is going to be a coal pocket, with a conveyor to some tall silos. The radius can't be much more than 12", but since I'm only pushing one short coal hopper back, it works fine. This facility is going to have a permanently stationed small steam engine to switch it, eventually, so the facing track into the tank farm is no trouble at all, as long as the local crew is paying attention. This complex is mainly intended to be viewed from the throat end (near the yard); eventually there will be more small trees scattered around to disrupt and break up the connection between the far end and the mainline.
You also get a good view of the Wattsburg station, which isn't here. It's in Wattsburg. Next to it is Heki Park, because when I worked in Corry, PA, I stopped in at a very old train store run by a nice older lady who had a nice selection of stuff her late husband had stocked 20 years ago. I bought a Heki starter set where everything looked very parklike, so the station got a park, as stations often used to have. It also got an outhouse from the old RMC cutout book. This is supposed to be prewar in the US version of the Ghibli Hills or something, there should be more of those...
Edited by - Autobus Prime on May 24 2014 7:36:14 PM
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:44:17 PM
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I love your eye level pictures; very nice composition in those shots.  I also appreciate the appropriateness of there being a brewery in meadville! But I can't believe you didn't mention Tyco by name in the list of modern factory manufacturers!
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:50:36 PM
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Now for the yard in Wattsburg.
It's such a very tiny precious yard. It's big enough to store some cars, and it has enough room to make up the locals if you pretend the enginehouse lead and the track behind the station are extra yard tracks. You do a lot of pretending when running this railroad. I think half the trackage and 90% of the mainline exist only virtually, with the visible track arranged to make the imagining easier.
Originally, the paper enginehouse was where our silly, anachronistic intermodal facility now is, but I found it at the train show and couldn't resist. Ditto the log loader at the yard throat, whose shed masquerades as Random Tool Shed in its spare time, with some paper buildings my kids built from the RMC cutout book for backup. (also a gas tank made from a dollar-store toy train car). You may think the loader platform is unrealistic, but it extends out over the power pack and is therefore enveloped in the same global nonexistence field. The logs simply pop into existence in the freight car.
The yard office is a very old plastic RPO from the 1950s. 25 cents. Behind it is a long structure that is actually a stores building, crew locker room, and lunch room. This is scratchbuilt from an old drawing in MR. The water tank is scratchbuilt of cardboard and hand-sawed wood sticks, with the tank built around a mushroom can.
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 7:51:25 PM
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quote:I love your eye level pictures; very nice composition in those shots. /tyco/forum/images/icon_mi_6.gif I also appreciate the appropriateness of there being a brewery in meadville! But I can't believe you didn't mention Tyco by name in the list of modern factory manufacturers!
Originally posted by gmoney - May 24 2014 : 7:44:17 PM
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Good grief, who didn't sell that one. XD
I always go for eye-level shots if I can manage it, I don't really like the pictures taken from treetop level, looking down...however, they are a convenience for unfinished model railroads such as this one, where there is often stuff I am trying hard to exclude. :D
Breweries - Every city had one before Prohibition. Meadville once had 6... Meadville City was no longer a brewery, but was still standing when I was young. It's all gone now but the foundations, and I still can't find photos, but it was a very silly building, along Mead Avenue, very narrow, very long, at least three stories tall with a gable roof, and set into a steep hillside, with a full extra story exposed in the front, and a big, bold "Meadville City BrgCo painted on. I wish I had photos of it.
One of theirs:
http://brucemobley.com/beerbottlelibrary/pa/meadville/meadville.htm
Edited by - Autobus Prime on May 24 2014 8:00:44 PM
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 8:50:32 PM
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quote:This was one of the major things I wanted, a big, sketchy, mostly wooden factory with a vaguely agricultural appearance, the kind of thing you see in rural western PA. It's never too easy to figure out what they make.
Originally posted by Autobus Prime - May 24 2014 : 7:28:38 PM
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It looks like a feed mill. It would receive grain, either by rail or, if there is extensive grain farming locally, by truck or wagon from local farmers. Also, it would receive supplements such as bagged peanuts by rail. The feed it produces would be locally consumed by livestock farmers. Feed could be bagged. You could also model an auger conveyer sticking out the side of the building, somewhere, for farmers who buy feed in bulk.
Depending on your era, grain would be shipped either in box cars or covered hoppers. The transition from box cars to grain hoppers began in the early 1960's and ended sometime in the 1970's, though I do know a Canadian National engineer who was hauling grain-laden box cars into the 1980's up in Western Canada.
The facility to receive grain from the tracks via box car would be a grate between the tracks and the building. The grate would be over a pit with a conveyor leading to an elevator leg under the cupola in the building. It should, therefore, line up with the cupola. For hopper cars, the grate should be between the rails and could be implied by an area of planks covering the pit when it's not in use.
By the way, I love that classic coal yard model. It's a piece of model railroad history.
Carpe Manana!
Edited by - scsshaggy on May 24 2014 8:56:51 PM
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 10:06:25 PM
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quote: quote:This was one of the major things I wanted, a big, sketchy, mostly wooden factory with a vaguely agricultural appearance, the kind of thing you see in rural western PA. It's never too easy to figure out what they make.
Originally posted by Autobus Prime - May 24 2014 : 7:28:38 PM
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It looks like a feed mill. It would receive grain, either by rail or, if there is extensive grain farming locally, by truck or wagon from local farmers. Also, it would receive supplements such as bagged peanuts by rail. The feed it produces would be locally consumed by livestock farmers. Feed could be bagged. You could also model an auger conveyer sticking out the side of the building, somewhere, for farmers who buy feed in bulk.
Depending on your era, grain would be shipped either in box cars or covered hoppers. The transition from box cars to grain hoppers began in the early 1960's and ended sometime in the 1970's, though I do know a Canadian National engineer who was hauling grain-laden box cars into the 1980's up in Western Canada.
The facility to receive grain from the tracks via box car would be a grate between the tracks and the building. The grate would be over a pit with a conveyor leading to an elevator leg under the cupola in the building. It should, therefore, line up with the cupola. For hopper cars, the grate should be between the rails and could be implied by an area of planks covering the pit when it's not in use.
Originally posted by scsshaggy - May 24 2014 : 8:50:32 PM
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It does look like a feedmill, and we do have a lot of those in western PA. On in particular is at an S-bend on Rt 6 about halfway from Corry to Warren, and I have always wanted to build a model of it. For this industry, I wanted something a little more exotic than alfalfa pellets, though. :D
You're making me think, though, with the boxcars. The bulk receiving track should probably get something besides coal. The power plant is all the way across the property, but the bulk track and silos are going to be right by the smaller building that presumably holds crushers or something (since it's connected by what is clearly a large enclosed conveyor). Maybe we should receive boxcars there, hauling whatever unknown raw material, to be shoveled out very much like grain.
Hmm... Nite-Glow ore...
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 11:48:55 PM
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| Dig your style autobus and the way this railroad has evolved. Great photos.
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Posted - May 24 2014 : 11:54:01 PM
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A really delightful layout...and Percy looks very cozy tucked away in the single stall engine house
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Posted - May 25 2014 : 01:05:19 AM
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quote:A really delightful layout...and Percy looks very cozy tucked away in the single stall engine house
Originally posted by metalsmith1Â -Â May 24 2014Â :Â 11:54:01 PM
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I agree & saw that!
Maybe someday I oughta make you envious of my Transformer & Gobot collections, Autobus
Since I just got Grimlock recently
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Posted - November 22 2015 : 04:00:29 AM
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Still working on the railroad. Added scenery, mostly Dollar Tree materials (lichen, black sand, kitty litter, spray adhesive) and built some tanks for the chemical plant from Red Bull cans.
   
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Posted - November 22 2015 : 07:30:34 AM
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That's some really good scenery work there. Love the way you have the coal
mingled in with the ballast at the refueling station.
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Posted - November 22 2015 : 12:00:19 PM
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| Fabulous Tyco Folk Art. Really enjoyed this.
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Posted - November 22 2015 : 1:13:00 PM
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hope to do this someday
But I'll do it like the CB&Q layout that was in the recent MR mags but in BN instead
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