Follow the construction of the JLandT Railroad, a HO single deck, proto-freelanced layout set in the 70s to 80s, based on the Reading Lines and Conrail merger era...
Moving along nicely with the concrete standing areas for the York Haven - Pulp & Paper Mill.
The photo below shows the completed section, and the bare styrene ready for the sticker sheet to be applied.
The above completed section is a little trickier as it covers a curved sections of track leading into the chemical unloading area, the hardest part is getting the right width through the curve to allow for the flanges.
More soon...
5 minute concrete hard standing areas in HO scale...
This is the first section of the York - Pulp & Paper Mill. This uses 0.30” - 0.75mm styrene sheet with a concrete stick-on texture.
Removable, customisable, easily weathered, and extremely quick...
Spraying track work again today...
Moves along very quickly with a rattle can, this is almost an entire cans worth.
Some sections have both sides sprayed, that can be seen from the aisle.
Something a little different today, I installed a lockable door between the front entrance/workshop area and the crew lounge/Rutherford Yard room.
For years I’ve been battling with dust & sawdust getting into both areas. Well that’s a thing of the past, door is also key locked for added security.
This will also help with temperature fluctuations throughout the year & once I install a reverse cycle - split system.
Finishing up the base scenery layer for the unloading/loading area of the York - Pulp & Paper Mill today.
Quickest, Cleanest & Easiest way to get large concrete areas for a scene done...
In HO - Evergreen Styrene Sheets - 0.30” - 0.75mm, fits perfectly in the railhead groove on Code 83 Peco track.
Jas...
Working today on getting the concrete hard standing areas done. This is just 0.30" (0.75mm) Sheet Styrene.
This area will incorporate a bunded area for filling tanks cars with Turpentine from the digester process, and some inbound chemicals via tank car also.
Moves along really quickly when installing it this way.
Tonight I added some more details to the Wood Chip unloading building and another structure for the Strong Black Liquor storage.
First up was the blower piping that routes the wood chips to the variable flow hopper on the roof, and also branches off to the digester that will be modelled as photo backdrop.
So I needed a little inspiration today, moving forward with the base level scenery around Carlisle Junction I needed to get a vision of what the background scene within the York - Pulp & Paper Mill (YP&PM) will look like...
Sometimes, that inspiration, and what determines the foreground scenery level, can come from the structures that occupy an area or scene as a whole.
The YP&PM has the main structures in place already, but none of the other supporting structures and/or process buildings have been constructed. The pulp was derived originally from two sources, chips & pulp wood. At this stage, and after building today's structures I think I'll be just steering towards the wood chips.
Today I began by building the wood chip receiving building, it’s a Pikestuff kit that has been kit bashed with the Walthers - Sawmill Outbuilding kit & also a Walthers - Modern Conveyer kit.
Basically the wood chips are released from the bottom of the hopper into a bin with screw auger and fed into a suction blower, and then blown up into a variable flow storage bin.
This then drops and feeds onto a conveyer and is routed to a outside storage bund or straight into the digester building.
Started the mammoth task of painting all the ties tonight...
Starting out with a couple of quick coats of the Rustoleum - Earth Brown, and then finished off with the air brush with some highlights of roof brown to simulate some light rust.
One of the main locomotives that carried the Reading through the 70's was the EMD GP35.
I wanted to model the GP35 extensively on the layout, luckily I've been fortunate enough to get a hold of several of the older Kato - RDG versions. There were two versions #3632 & #3645, I'll be renumbering several of these, along with adding DCC & Sound.
Finally got everything in, LED upgrade, including cabin light, sound, ESU Power Pack Mini & LokSound - Direct decoder...
Just installing the EMD 16cyl 567D sound file, and also configure it to run with the ProtoThrottle.
Next step will be new road number decals for the long hood & number boards.
Second project for last night was more work converting the Kato - RDG GP35 to DCC & Sound with a LokSound V5 - Direct Decoder.
I also set the positioning for the ESU Power Pack Mini, and the DCC Specialities “Thunder” speaker.
Next step will be converting all the running lights to LED’s with additional cab lighting too...
Today was spent finishing off the last section of the layouts fascia panels. Behind the centre peninsula is Reading & Middletown, and these sections of the layout have been finished with both scenery, fascia's & upper valances.
To incorporate the newer fascia panels I had to adjust the height of the fascia's in this area. Today I added two new sections to the existing fascia's and also added an extra section of scenery area so that it covered the track work & bench work for the staging return loops that are underneath.
The use of the 1/8" (3mm) MDF makes this work go extremely quickly, and it bends into curves easily too.
I've also gained a little scenery real estate that I'll have to think about what to add.
This addition completes the fascia install for the entire layout, all that remains is to add two more fascia panels and this project is finally finished.
And for something a little different tonight, a change of pace for a warm Spring evening...
Removing OEM road numbers from a Kato - Reading GP35...
One down, seven more to go.
I'm using Mr Color - Thinner, I found this on the Kato website, works great, but be very light with the Q-Tip once the number starts to come off, or you’ll start to take off paint too.
http://www.katousa.com/consumers/changing-numbers.html
Jas...
