Alcanman Posted August 29, 2022 Share Posted August 29, 2022 For some time, I've looked at the Humboldt Industrial Park in West Hazleton PA as a potential subject for a small switching layout. Humboldt has several rail industries served by the Reading & Northern railroad along a 7 mile branch. Humboldt is far too large to model in it's entirety, so I have simply chosen a couple of customers - Cargill, who receive corn syrup cars and ship out candy products and International Paper who receive paper rolls in boxcars. I've also added a freelance transload track where covered hoppers are unloaded using augers. The track plan is my favoured 3 switch inglenook arrangement which I've found works well in the small space I have available. In fact, the plan is almost identical to my old 'Palmetto Spur' layout built over 10 years ago. 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supaned Posted August 29, 2022 Share Posted August 29, 2022 The real Humboldt Industrial park also has an interesting operating quirk in that trains have to do a shove move to join the main line so the RBMN uses a caboose for this. I've also looked at Humboldt as a basis for a layout. https://www.hazletoncando.com/docman/park-maps/77-humboldt-industrial-park-map-1 This is a map of the park showing the spurs - not sure if you've seen it before? There was a really good article in Railpace magazine in June 2016 about operations in the park , and the RBMN's own newsletters often have photos and/or snippets of information about new traffic flows there - I seem to recall they were unloading steel coils at one point . https://www.rbmnrr.com/s/SpringMagWebVersion.pdf - RBMN newsletter featuring Humboldt https://www.rbmnrr.com/news Newsletter PDFs free to download at the bottom of this page - plenty of photos and ideas within. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted August 29, 2022 Author Share Posted August 29, 2022 9 minutes ago, Supaned said: The real Humboldt Industrial park also has an interesting operating quirk in that trains have to do a shove move to join the main line so the RBMN uses a caboose for this. I've also looked at Humboldt as a basis for a layout. https://www.hazletoncando.com/docman/park-maps/77-humboldt-industrial-park-map-1 This is a map of the park showing the spurs - not sure if you've seen it before? There was a really good article in Railpace magazine in June 2016 about operations in the park , and the RBMN's own newsletters often have photos and/or snippets of information about new traffic flows there - I seem to recall they were unloading steel coils at one point . https://www.rbmnrr.com/s/SpringMagWebVersion.pdf - RBMN newsletter featuring Humboldt https://www.rbmnrr.com/news Newsletter PDFs free to download at the bottom of this page - plenty of photos and ideas within. Thanks. That's great, just what I've been looking for. Plenty of useful info. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted August 30, 2022 Author Share Posted August 30, 2022 Good progress on the layout with track all laid and lightly pinned in place until final positioning. The 2 main structures have been re-cycled from previous layouts. Having started to read the info in the links supplied by Supaned, I've discovered that the R&N recently opened a Transload facility at West Hazleton adjacent to Humboldt. 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted September 2, 2022 Author Share Posted September 2, 2022 I've now completed wiring the layout. After testing, locos are running nice and smoothly. With the 2 main structures simply placed, its time to try a few switching moves. A few hours work is all that is needed with a small layout and then you can start running trains. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted September 19, 2022 Author Share Posted September 19, 2022 After some deliberation regarding final positioning of the track, I finally got round to painting it. My usual method of hand painting using Humbrol enamels. Rails are painted with a mix of 2/3rds 'Track Colour' (no 173) and 1/3rd 'Leather' (no 62) For the ties, I add more Track Colour to the original mix together with a little grey. Hopefully, I'll proceed with ballasting later this week. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted September 23, 2022 Author Share Posted September 23, 2022 More progress this week with ballasting finished. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted September 26, 2022 Author Share Posted September 26, 2022 The Cargill food processing plant has now been bedded in place and a few details added. A few weeds have also begun to appear. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted October 7, 2022 Author Share Posted October 7, 2022 More progress this week with a low relief warehouse added at the left hand end of the layout. A line of sea-moss bushes added, together with grass tufts and static grass to fill the gap between the 2 main warehouse structures. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 This week I've been focusing and adding more ground cover using static grass and grass tufts. 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Nice job. Being a Reading Co. Modeler, I always like to see the RBMN or R&N. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted October 15, 2022 Author Share Posted October 15, 2022 Finished adding static grass and grass tufts to the left hand end of the layout. 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted October 18, 2022 Author Share Posted October 18, 2022 Added more ground cover using Martin Welberg shrubs and the yard office is now in place. 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted November 28, 2022 Author Share Posted November 28, 2022 I finally got round to finishing the layout after much deliberating whether or not to hide the staging track. In the end, I've simply gone for open staging. I still have a few details to add. 12 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liam_uk Posted November 28, 2022 Share Posted November 28, 2022 Looks great. Liking the weathering on the buildings 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcanman Posted November 28, 2022 Author Share Posted November 28, 2022 Reading & Northern MP15DC #1540 switching today at Humboldt. 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted December 17, 2022 Share Posted December 17, 2022 On 28/11/2022 at 10:07, Alcanman said: I finally got round to finishing the layout "Finishing"- a.k.a. "finished"... hmmm.... 🤔 what is this word "finished"?? 🤷♂️😉🤣 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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