TREE POINT

[dave1905]

John - I, for one, would be interested to see your thoughts on a track plan for this - especially as I'm looking at a new, small-space, trackplan to build over the winter or early next year

Since I started my career with the MoPac I'll chime in, the "zone" is a large area, For example an entire industrial switching lead or all the industrial track around a station might be in one zone. By the 1980's zones weren't really used, they were replaced by the term "yard" and the zone number was really the yard number (of vice versa depending on how you look at it).

 

I'm wondering how having a ZTS will add to the switching. If the cars have a destination without ZTS then they would have the same destination after ZTS, it would just be in code. If my waybill says the car goes to Cowhouse Products in Sparks, NV or says its going to RV185 01-769-00 its going to the same place and would require the same switching. I'm not objecting to using ZTS, I'm just wondering what the premise is on using them to increase operating opportunities.

[torikoos]

A little bit of progress again:


Corn syrup by K2K Koos, on Flickr


Corn syrup by K2K Koos, on Flickr

The toilet rolls are there to give me an idea how the silos (that I still need to build) are going to fit in the scene.

Koos

[torikoos]

I've started on a second small industry, just a general warehouse. This one has been build to fit the space using Pikestuff parts mostly. 

The walls of the building have been painted with dilluted Artist acrylics, just like the previous  building. 

I managed to mix up a blue colour that is a close match for the pikestuff materials, but painting it as such get's rid of the plastic shine, and gives a good base for further dirt and grime weathering. 

 

I did like a blue building, as I've seen many pictures of generic warehouses in the US build like that. 

 

Here's a picture of the side of the building, the loose pic is a piece of stock Pikestuff wall, the building behind it is painted, as said, a very close match.

Untitled by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

And here it is from the track side.

 

Untitled by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

I've also just received some static grass and tufts etc, so I can do a bit of scenery work too. I've been browsing military modeling/war gaming websites for products, I found some real gems amongst these, not your usual bright green flocks etc, but much more subdued, which enhances realism. however average prices are higher...

 

Koos

[DanielB]

Some good advice regarding the painting of the building to remove shine and prime it for weathering. I'll remember that one!

[Alcanman]

I've started on a second small industry, just a general warehouse. This one has been build to fit the space using Pikestuff parts mostly. 

The walls of the building have been painted with dilluted Artist acrylics, just like the previous  building. 

I managed to mix up a blue colour that is a close match for the pikestuff materials, but painting it as such get's rid of the plastic shine, and gives a good base for further dirt and grime weathering. 

 

I did like a blue building, as I've seen many pictures of generic warehouses in the US build like that. 

 

Here's a picture of the side of the building, the loose pic is a piece of stock Pikestuff wall, the building behind it is painted, as said, a very close match.

Untitled by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

And here it is from the track side.

 

Untitled by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

I've also just received some static grass and tufts etc, so I can do a bit of scenery work too. I've been browsing military modeling/war gaming websites for products, I found some real gems amongst these, not your usual bright green flocks etc, but much more subdued, which enhances realism. however average prices are higher...

 

Koos

Looking good Koos. I wonder if you could share your findings regarding static grass etc. Military modellers are often ahead of us railroad modellers when it comes to scenery products and also weathering products

 

I've bought quite a lot of static grass etc which looked OK on websites and then turned out to be far too brightly colored!

 

Mal

[squeaky]

I like this alot, my 15 year old is fianlly getting into model railways and this is just the sort of layout to inspire him, thanks

[DanielB]

Mal, Games Workshop do some rather nice static grass in multiple different shades.

 

Might be expensive compared to other brands though, as most GW stuff tends to be.

[torikoos]

hi Mal, a few suggestions:

'The Army Painter Wasteland Tuft

Wasteland Tuft BF4135 '

 

 

And: 

 

The Army Painter Steppe Grass
Steppe Grass BF4011 

 

 

Are two I just received, another brand to look for is Ziterdes, although I've found that some of it is re-branded 'Noch' .

Here's a link: http://www.scalemodelshop.co.uk/the-army-painter-5x16cm-highland-tufts-44126.html?utm_source=googleps

 

A brand you might be familiar with is Vallejo ,  I got a weathering powder kit from them , which is fairly reasonably priced compared to some others, and will probably last some time.

I first got the dirt and mud kit, for buildings and use throughout the scenery at a later stage.

 

Koos

[DanielB]

Vallejo are really great paints and pigments - their range is huge.

[torikoos]

Yes Vallejo appears to be really nice stuff.

 

By the way Mal, 'The Army Painter' tufts are also available from Modeljunction I just spotted.  So there's an option for you too. I also spotted another supplier on a commercial link here on RM web, War World Scenics, which makes their own grass. Particularly their autumn and winter colours look very useful.

 

Koos

[JWB]

Since I started my career with the MoPac I'll chime in, the "zone" is a large area, For example an entire industrial switching lead or all the industrial track around a station might be in one zone. By the 1980's zones weren't really used, they were replaced by the term "yard" and the zone number was really the yard number (of vice versa depending on how you look at it).

 

I'm wondering how having a ZTS will add to the switching. If the cars have a destination without ZTS then they would have the same destination after ZTS, it would just be in code. If my waybill says the car goes to Cowhouse Products in Sparks, NV or says its going to RV185 01-769-00 its going to the same place and would require the same switching. I'm not objecting to using ZTS, I'm just wondering what the premise is on using them to increase operating opportunities.

I'm a little late seeing this question.  I believe Keith Jordan's "Patch" layout uses zones, or at least a vestigial version of them, as they appeared on the Santa Fe. (The PRR appears to have had a similar scheme, at least in its Chicago switching area.)

 

I think zones would make yard switching easier and more prototypical. The usual objection to yard switching on a model layout has been that on a model, cars are put more or less at random into any yard track where they will fit, and then the model switcher "cherry picks" a car or two from each track to build an outgoing train. On the prototype, each yard track has a purpose related to a destination. A single bowl track might represent the Memphis manifest. On a smaller yard, one track might represent a particular customer, so cars destined for Mobil Lubricants all go to Track 5.

 

On a smallish to medium layout with a 3 track yard, a train comes inbound from staging. Industries west of the yard on layout are Zone 1. Cars for those industries go to Track 1. Industries east are Zone 2 and go to Track 2. And so forth. This is certainly how a car would be directed using a prototype 1970s or 80s based computer system, and a manual system earlier. A recent diagram I saw of BNSF's Malabar Yard near LA doesn't seem to use zones, but definitely designates particular tracks for particular industries and destinations.

 

This adds to what Bruce Chubb calls documentary or conceptual scenery, and it makes switching the yard slightly easier and more prototypical. It removes the "cherry pick" objection to model yard switching.

 

The JMRI switchlist feature now accommodates this -- I can certainly designate zones (more or less equivalent to towns) in the software, and I can set up yard tracks as what JMRI calls "interchanges" to accept only traffic for certain trains, which would correspond to the locals serving each zone. I'm in the process of implementing a scheme like this on my layout, and I like the way it's working. It may be that computerizing it makes it much easier.

 

Pace CVSNE, I haven't seen the usual "experts" discuss this (Keith Jordan the exception), and I recognize these are CVSNE's buds. I don't have the same attachment.

[JWB]

Dave makes another point that's worth a digression: "If my waybill says the car goes to Cowhouse Products in Sparks, NV or says its going to RV185 01-769-00 its going to the same place and would require the same switching." Aren't we overfixating on the waybill here? A waybill is, as I understand it as an outsider, the authority for a railroad to move a car. During some period prior to the 1980s, a stack of waybills corresponding (theoretically) to the cars in a train went with the train in the caboose. These were used by the conductor to create a handwritten wheel report. The wheel report then went to the yardmaster's office in the destination yard, where clerks used various methods to build switchlists or work orders to tell the yard crews what cars to switch to what tracks in the yard.

 

My understanding of punch card technology is that sometime between the invention of 80-column punch cards about 1895 and the development of automated sorter and calculator machines based on punch cards in the 1920s, between then and the 1970s, the railroads would have used each wheel report to re-punch cards corresponding to each incoming car at each new yard. The cards would then be sorted into pigeonholes corresponding to zone, customer, and spot. As far as I can see, at some point here, the waybill basically becomes an accounting document that then serves as a source or backup for any instructions issued to a crew. The cards would mainly be the source for a printed or handwritten yard work order. As far as I can tell, the work orders or switchlists would be printed via high-speed printer in the yardmaster's office at least from the 1950s.

 

The waybill may contain the destination the same as a piece of computer code, but the zone will be critical in determining things like track assignment, which comes out of some evolutionary version of the yard office pigeonhole or the computer storage device in the data center. It's worth pointing out that the accepted gurus of operation, like Tony Thompson, feel that their main contribution to operation has been to make waybills look a little more like waybills from the 1950s, when the actual operational functions of railroads seem to have been getting farther and farther away from the hard-copy waybill since at least the 1920s.

 

Zone is an important way of designating who works what car and where it goes. Keith Jordan's site shows how a tag with the zone on it was the instruction that showed a yard crew what track to put the car on -- not the waybill. In other words, as the time span gets later and later, the hard copy waybill is less and less prototypical as a way to operate, insofar as an operating crew regards it as an instruction as to destination.

[torikoos]

A little bit more construction has taken place on the warehouse. I've started the awning/roof over the loading platform.

I made the frame of styrene strips, a job that was made easier by my newest toy, a NWSL 'The Chopper' :-)

 

After painting this frame, I attached a metal roof using sheeds of corrugated metal by Northeastern scale lumber.

That of course still needs to be painted and weathered, to get a nice rusty look.

 

Here's a few in progress pictures.

 

Loading platform by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

Warehouse roof by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

 

Koos

 

[JWB]

I'm not sure if you mean to unload the centerbeam at that platform, but to actually unload one, you need to have access on both sides, because you need to load and unload them gradually from both sides. Otherwise, if you unload too much from one side, it will tip over. There are warning labels about this on the cars themselves. A centerbeam is normally unloaded in an open area with access on both sides from forklifts.

[DanielB]

Which is why my lumber yard on Cane River is going to have a large section of hard standing for precisely that purpose!

 

Of course I need to get some centrebeams first.

 

And actually get the layout built.

 

Progress is coming on nicely Koos!

[Adrian Wintle]

I'm not sure if you mean to unload the centerbeam at that platform, but to actually unload one, you need to have access on both sides, because you need to load and unload them gradually from both sides. Otherwise, if you unload too much from one side, it will tip over. There are warning labels about this on the cars themselves. A centerbeam is normally unloaded in an open area with access on both sides from forklifts.

 

An example https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=43.863329,-79.510587&spn=0.000828,0.001294&t=h&z=20

 

and another https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=43.936303,-79.512431&spn=0.001653,0.002588&t=h&z=19

 

Adrian

[torikoos]

Hi guys, the only reason I have a centre beam along side is to judge the height of the roof correctly. I had no high cube boxcar available and figured this would be the next best thing.

 

there is a team track planned on another part of the module, with access for a forklift truck on either side of a centre beam if one is spotted there.

 

Thanks for the extra links however as it might provide me with some inspiration before I start on that area. :-)

 

 

Koos

[torikoos]

It's been a few months, but finally a minor update, the weather has been too nice (? never thought I'd ever write that…), and had lots of other stuff going on.

Anyway, I've added some telegraph poles, I've weathered/coloured the ballast on the tracks as I did not like it's uniform 'sand' appearance, I've put down a base layer of Scenic Express 'mud', and a few patches of WS ground turf.

There's still a lot of work and touch up to do, but the basic feel is slowly starting to become apparent. 

 

Track weathering 2 by K2K Koos, on Flickr

[torikoos]

I'm also intending to make a set of removable backdrop boards, that depending on the orientation of this module, can be clamped onto one of the sides. 

Model Junction had a couple of them on sale (the Pele Soeborg designed ones) that would fit the purpose nicely and I've ordered these for this module. If anything the photo realistic skies on these will help the overall atmosphere.

 

Koos

[torikoos]

 

 

I found that scenery products for Military and fantasy modeling can be very useful. They often have toned down colours which are a relief from the bright colours you tend to see for RR modeling.

Here I'm using 'wasteland grass tufts' by 'The Army Painter'. 

 

Planting grass tufts by K2K Koos, on Flickr

[torikoos]

The GERN Industries corporation has just announced the opening of a new facility in Tree Point, Wisconsin.  

Rather than building a new warehouse, they took over existing facilities, saving them sufficient money to be at least 3% better off.

 

The facility will enable the company to distribute their products in the area by rail, rather than road, due to rising demand, and complaints from the local town council, due  the traffic created by the trucks  which increased such that is causes gridlock at busier times in the day. Immediately after the opening, the first box cars arrived, and caused an immediate reduction in road traffic of 3% in the first hour of the facility being opened, this could have been better had it not been for the press showing up, and the protest some local truckers staged.

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

Koos 

 

PS: More on GERN can be found here: http://zealot.com/threads/gern-modellers.155126/

 

and here:  http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=294

[Robatron86]

I've used army painter stick on tufts before. They are great products. Layout is looking very realistic, especially the variations in sand colours.

[shortliner]

 

The GERN Industries corporation has just announced the opening of a new facility in Tree Point, Wisconsin.  

Rather than building a new warehouse, they took over existing facilities, saving them sufficient money to be at least 3% better off.

 

The facility will enable the company to distribute their products in the area by rail, rather than road, due to rising demand, and complaints from the local town council, due  the traffic created by the trucks  which increased such that is causes gridlock at busier times in the day. Immediately after the opening, the first box cars arrived, and caused an immediate reduction in road traffic of 3% in the first hour of the facility being opened, this could have been better had it not been for the press showing up, and the protest some local truckers staged.

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

GERN warehouse by K2K Koos, on Flickr

 

Koos 

 

PS: More on GERN can be found here: http://zealot.com/threads/gern-modellers.155126/

 

and here:  http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=294

 

 

Koos - in case you need some extra business - can I recommend a look here http://www.hammriver.com/Hamm_River_Model_Products/The_Great_Flatulene_disaster.html

it appears to be available in several grades