Grand Lake, LA (Was: New Module with no name)

[Zomboid]

This will be no surprise to anyone who's been reading my ZSRR thread. If not then this is still hardly shocking...

 

I recently ordered some new laser cut baseboards, which when I've assembled them will give me a 2m x 18" area. I'm not one to post "look, I opened a box!", but just this once: Look! I opened a box!

 

 

This will be used to build a freemo module - it sadly won't completely comply with the NMRA standards, as it's just not going to be long enough to have 6" of straight, plain track at each end and have a run round as long as I want it (I have been to a few of the Bearwood meets in the last few months, and the trains there are typically 300 scale feet long, so I want to run round to fit that as a minimum; ideally that plus a loco so it could also be used as a passing siding). I've designed it to have 3 inches at either end though, which I think is the RS tower standard. Anyway, that's what it is. If it's going to be a problem at meets then it's not too late to fiddle with it - I haven't even bought the track yet...

 

After some discussions on the other thread, I've kind of settled on this plan:

Based on Abbeville, Louisiana. Switches on the run round are #6, the others are #5s.  I'd rather use #8s, but I wouldn't be able to set it up in my house if I built it big enough for that.

 

The only insignificant decision I've made is to name the rice mill "Jerry's Rice". If you know anything about who the greatest NFL player of all time is, you'll understand that... The other industry is apparently another rice mill in reality, but I'm going to change it to something that will take something other than covered hoppers. Not that I don't like me some covhop, just variety is the spice and all that.

 

I'm not expecting to be super fast at this, but I would ideally like to have it operational before the end of the summer. I reckon I can stretch that to October if we have a warm September, so I don't recommend anyone holds their breath...

 

But first, I need to buy some alignment dowels and wood glue...

Edited May 7, 2018 by Zomboid

[Adrian Wintle]

That's a nice plan. Suggestion for the other industry: oil. Some refinery plants can be very small, and besides, most of it will be off-module anyway   Or leave it as a team-track: plenty of stock variation on those! Alternatively, something related to boxcars, like a furniture factory or even car parts.

 

It could also be an anonymous industrial building that takes ethanol cars or (if relatively modern) covered hoppers of plastic beads. Either of those would have a simple 'hoses at ground level' unloading scheme. Industrial buildings (even rail-served ones) that are totally anonymous from the rail side are quite common.

 

Adrian

[long island jack]

how about extending the rice plant track across the road, it would save you the cost of a point, and move the freight house point further left, then you could have an industry either side of the road, this would add a lot more fun to switching.

 

just an idea, seeing you've not got your track yet.

 

Ray

[Zomboid]

I like the idea of extending the rice track. I'll have another play on Anyrail this evening.

It would take it further from the original idea, but it's not supposed to be a model of Abbeville anyway.

 

Name suggestions are welcomed by the way, I'd rather avoid "something-ville", and was thinking of going with something in French since it's supposedly in Louisiana, but I've not had any ideas that I actually like yet.

[F-UnitMad]

how about extending the rice plant track across the road, it would save you the cost of a point, and move the freight house point further left, then you could have an industry either side of the road, this would add a lot more fun to switching.

 

just an idea, seeing you've not got your track yet.

 

Ray

Agree - one long spur with several car spots looks better (& more prototypical) than several short, '1-car' spurs. Despite appearances, it actually becomes more interesting to switch, too.

[DanielB]

What about "Midland", as the mill is on the old Southern Pacific Midland Branch?

 

Awesome plan, btw, and I'm totally jealous!

 

I was planning on building this area in N scale as an exhibition layout, but never got around to it.

[Zomboid]

Updated plan:

I've shown some "50' cars" on there. I did move the freight house switch a bit, but I want to keep the depot on there, so it couldn't go far enough to make space for anything on the left of the road. Obviously I could lose the road and make a bit more switching space that way, but I'd then have to lose the horizontal bit of road too, and that's a feature I really like and want to keep. Even though I'm no good at modelling roads. By shifting it along a bit I could probably use a #6 for that spur though.

 

I also dry-assembled the baseboards yesterday, which gave me an opportunity to use some of the darker recesses of my vocabulary. I can see that it'll be interesting when it comes to doing it for real - much, much easier than making it from scratch myself would be, but the fact remains that carpentry is not a skill I possess. Looking forward to the bit where I have to bodge together some leg pockets...

Does anyone have some helpful tips for assembling these things? It seemed to me like it was best to assemble the frame and then put the top on, but if anyone knows the secret and is willing to share...

 

I quite like Midland as a name for it. I'll let that percolate for a while and see if I still like it in a couple of weeks.

[shortliner]

French names - "Chemmise-Les-Thurs", pronounced like the car-washing cloth, has always appealed, and I know it is the name of the recently-ex president, but "Horllande" always sounds like a French town or district. "Chantilly, La." sounds good too. Re the railroad - perhaps it would be worth reviving the " Louisiana Midland Railway" as a short-line?

Can't really advise about the putting together of baseboards, as despite being a crap carpenter, I make mine using Stanley right-angle clamps to make the frame and glue them together, then glue the MDF surface on using clamps to hold it in position until dry. No nails, no screws - but M6 bolts and tee-nuts to join seperate boards, if needed

Edited June 4, 2017 by shortliner

[DanielB]

If you do keep the depot, don't forget to put a short run of track next to it with an old preserved caboose on it, ala the real place:

 

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=716071

 

 

Also, check out this google image search for some modern, and really interesting photos of the railroad at the mill, which should get your creative juices flowing:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=southern+pacific+midland+branch+abbeville+la&hl=en&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiknt-J56TUAhUkM8AKHZY0CVsQ_AUICSgE&biw=1920&bih=990

[Zomboid]

That's both inspiring and terrifying. Building the hopper loading thingies is one thing I hadn't worked out a plan for yet, and I'm no clearer now!

Love the shots of the oil cars being switched though.

[DanielB]

I'd suggest a mix of walthers kits and plastruct.

 

Whilst not 100% accurate, the walthers travelling crane would give you a good starting point for the framework that supports the hopper loading chutes.

 

Then there's the grain bins, silos and pipework kits.

 

I've got all that to build for my layout's grain elevator too, so I'll be sure to share ideas/progress in my thread.

[Zomboid]

I shall look forward to seeing how you handle it. I suspect you'll beat me to getting​ stuff done.

 

Looking at that stuff, it would probably make sense to switch the rice with the "other industry". The idea of running under a hopper loading chute to switch another industry seems a bit far fetched.

Might go with the freight house/team on that side and oil in the bottom corner.

Or make the rice plant span the road and have some stuff delivered to it as well as the hoppers going out. Not sure what, though. Fuel maybe, or general things that come in boxcars...

[DanielB]

Hopper cars would take loose rice, but boxcars would be used for bagged product outbound, as well as multiple other products inward.

 

Instead of the freight house, you could technically make a model of Ace Hardware, who I believe are the customer that has the tank cars delivered to them.

 

You could say that they also have builders supplies delivered to them, and have a small team track on that spur. That'd let you use all sorts of cars - tank cars, box cars, bulkhead flats, centerbeams, cement hoppers, etc.

[Supaned]

Interesting module and interesting location too.

 

I'd echo the comments of others on here , and try not to squeeze too much into the module, especially given the overall length.

 

The rice plant would be the main industry , with 3 or more car spots , and I'd agree with Dan in that the freight house spur would be best used as a team track for Ace Hardware , as that allow you to use all sorts of car types ie boxcars , centerbeams and bulkhead flats. From a modelling point of view , a team track is also somewhat simpler to do, just a hardstanding and a forklift truck.

[Zomboid]

Thanks for your input everyone. Plenty to think about.

Sadly there's no space to actually model Ace Hardware, but their loading/ unloading facility is a good idea.

In reality the industry on the far left is a non-rail served lumber merchant (or was the last time the Google car drove by), which is another thing I've been thinking of. Possibly an option for the other industry on the long spur.

Anyway, no need to be paralysed by indecision yet, the boards are still not stuck together.

[Vanrouge]

Looks like an interesting project, I agree with Dan and Supaned the team track idea would seem a better bet than the freight house.

 

Cheers

Nick

[Supaned]

A few more thoughts on this I've had today.

 

Firstly , have you seen this page? : http://jimbaux.com/2015/01/06/rice-branch/

 

The spur to Creole Fermentation which takes tank cars of denatured alcohol looks to be a neat little industry to model and again fairly simple to do - if you'd rather have tank cars than boxcars & centerbeams then this might be an option - in effect , you could make Abbeville as a layout design element , and although the length would be compressed , you could keep all the key features apart from the freight house unless that's a must have.

 

Most of that metalwork around the rice plant is probably just safety framing for the guys working on top of the cars - a common feature these days but rarely modelled.

 

As far as standards go , only you can answer that. I guess if you want to use it on a fairly regular basis with a group local to you , then adopt the standards of that group , likewise if you want to get involved with the bigger meetings eg Devon , Southern Seaboard and Armitage then again look into the standards used there. Ultimately , you could always make a short adaptor board to bring within whichever chosen standard should it not be compatible.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Supaned

[Zomboid]

Terriffic set of pictures there. Shame they didn't get to Abbeville whilst the light was better, but still very interesting.

 

Here's some tweaks:

Having the Alcohol distributor on an angle is more interesting to look at than if it were parallel, and angling the road means there's some hope of getting 2x 55' tanks on that spur.

The run round is tight for 6x 50' cars without blocking the road, which means it should be fine for a 5 car train of mixed cars, or even 5 + caboose.

Still not certain about the top right. If I were doing Abbeville it would be another rice mill, but I'd rather have something different.

 

In other news, some alignment dowels are on their way...

[DanielB]

If you did do it as a different industry, it'd make for more interesting operations, as you'd have to move the rice hoppers to switch it.

[Supaned]

Maybe have it as boxcar loading for sacks of rice ? Another industry up there might look a bit "odd" depending on what the industry was - I can't really envisage a situation where something unrelated would be switched through the rice plant.

 

Even if it's boxcars , they'll still need digging out from behind the hoppers as and when they are loaded ,and empties put in their place.

[Zomboid]

I think it needs to be related to the rice plant, as you say switching a lumber yard or something through the hopper loading gear just seems a bit far fetched. I'm sure some excuse for the rice plant to import or export some stuff in boxcars could be invented. Really wants to be boxcars because I have about 20 of those compared to 3 covered hoppers and two tankers (both of which are labelled fuel).

[doctor quinn]

I'm sure some excuse for the rice plant to import or export some stuff in boxcars could be invented. Really wants to be boxcars because I have about 20 of those compared to 3 covered hoppers and two tankers (both of which are labelled fuel).

Bagged rice outbound to certain customers?

 

Nick

[Glorious NSE]

As far as standards go , only you can answer that. I guess if you want to use it on a fairly regular basis with a group local to you , then adopt the standards of that group , likewise if you want to get involved with the bigger meetings eg Devon , Southern Seaboard and Armitage then again look into the standards used there. Ultimately , you could always make a short adaptor board to bring within whichever chosen standard should it not be compatible.

 

Suspect the Bearwood guys will be absolutely fine with it being to RST standards, as many of our guys attend and take part in their modular meets as well.

(The fundamentals are compatible either way.)

 

I think it needs to be related to the rice plant, as you say switching a lumber yard or something through the hopper loading gear just seems a bit far fetched.

It might seem odd - but there are plenty of examples of multiple industries per spur, so that kind of thing must happen in reality.

 

Alternate thought - don't use that bit of track for anything, but dedicate it to storing 'off-spots' for the rice plant?

 

 

Sadly there's no space to actually model Ace Hardware, but their loading/ unloading facility is a good idea.

In reality the industry on the far left is a non-rail served lumber merchant (or was the last time the Google car drove by), which is another thing I've been thinking of. Possibly an option for the other industry on the long spur.

Anyway, no need to be paralysed by indecision yet, the boards are still not stuck together.

If you are doing the other spur as a team track, the inbound loads for it could be headed to that non-rail served industry anyhow...

[Vanrouge]

Bagged rice outbound to certain customers?

 

Nick

Why not make it the bagging plant, connected to the main facility with a covered overhead conveyor?

 

Cheers

Nick

Edited June 10, 2017 by Vanrouge

[Zomboid]

Why not make it the bagging plant, connected to the main facility with a covered overhead conveyor?

 

Cheers

Nick

 

The thought had crossed my mind. Though an overhead conveyer.... Gulp. I'll address that in due course.

 

For now, here's today's progress, baseboards now glued together:

 

The alignment dowels are very tight, it's a right mission to get it together (I had to use clamps, though they can come off once it's actually in position). I'll see how I go with that, not exactly overflowing with alternative ideas.