We had a free day today (no mowing!), so I decided to start on the Team Track area and work on the bulk transloading facility. The facility will handle both liquid and dry bulk shipments. The gray piping on top is for dry cargos and the white piping will handle liquid. I will need to add a pipe for non hazardous liquids as well. But here is a start anyway. The white piping is 1/8” diameter. There are 2 hose points under the towers for unloading. The dry line is 1/8” Walthers piping from a refinery piping kit. I glued it the added heat shrink tubing over to hold everything together. The big tank in the back is a Plastruct kit I picked up cheap. The unloading platforms are Walthers. I think I’m going to need more! Thanks for stopping by! Dale
That looks cool Dale. Its those little details that you mention that make this such a special build thread.
Still working on the pellet unloading equipment for the team track bulk spur. This the blower and pot assembly for the pellet line. There will be a line in to the pot from the track and then a line out at the bottom to the pellet silos. Built with left-overs, scrap pieces and sheet styrene. Thanks for looking! Dale
My grand father's name was DB Cooper. He was one of like 14 alive in the U.S. at the time of the hijacking. He was interviewed by the FBI, he said when they saw he matched no descriptions, and was An engineer on a train when it all went down, so the interview was short. Speaking of hijacking, sorry Dale. But I do wonder where you get all the little parts to make these detailed unloading or transfer facilities. Great work. Tom Holley
Hi Tom, Very interesting story! I’m glad your grandfather was cleared by the feds! Perhaps you should hang a small parachute in a tree somewhere on you layout to comemerate that story. Put a small suitcase with money around it in a near by creek! LOL Most of my small parts come from left overs from kits I’ve built along the way. Or odd and ends of things I’ve picked up over the years. Or sometime parts I rob out of kits I’m going to build. If you look at the pictures above I can tell you about where everything came from. For the actual track-side unloading line: Piping and piping supports from a Walthers Refinery piping kit, plastruct plastic rod, piping from Rix Grain Elevator kits. The manways were from a Walthers Tank Cars Unloading kit. Wire for hoses. The little silver house is a line side building I picked up in a bag of stuff at a flea market. The small piggyback tank I’ve had for years. The tall gray tank is a Plastruct kit. For the pellet blower: The pot with the long vent came from a Walthers planer mill kit, I used the open building in the kit for the Hughes Limber shed. The planer building itself is in the box. I plant to cut it down on height to represent a long low grain storage building if I can fit it in. The base for the pot was in another box of old ho buildings I bought at a flea market. The blower motor assembly on the back was made up of old parts. Walkways and the muffler were from an A Line kit for 1st gen stack cars. It had an option for onboard power, I did not use. The base for the motor was from another bag of junk I had, it was actually a walkway with wood flooring. I took out the flooring and cut 2 of the trusses loose and narrowed them to fit under the motor base. The motor (small round piece) was a brake resivor from the stack kit. The larger blower was from the Rix elevator kit, I added a piece in the center of it to simulate a cover for the blower bearing. The belt guard is just a bit of 1/16” sheet styrene I cut out. I added in some bits and pieces of structural shapes to make it look beefy and industrial and painted it with gray primer. The ladder is from an old Walthers Tank Car kit. They always came with extras, so I always save them. They’ve come in handy many times when a ladder get broken off and disappears. My inspiration came from the WWW because I googled railcar plastic pellet unloading and looked at what images I could find. After I get the blower complete I will add the silos. I have a Walthers Propane tank kit, I will cut the tanks gown to flat ends, add styrene for the ends, stand them up and add more piping. It will all be placed on a long narrow base of plywood and painted and weathered. Piece of cake! I hope I haven’t bored you all to death here! Take care, Dale
Very nice construction there Dale! Admirable work. I suppose that such machinery would be inside a building in a plastics factory whereas on a team track they would be out in the open?
Hi Yannis, From what I’ve found in pictures, you are correct. It sure makes for interesting scenery! Thanks for responding! Dale
Well fall has arrived with my yearly bout of sinus infection and bronchitis! But the up side is I’ve been inside all weekend and got some serious time in the train room. For those of you that have seen my thread over in Frisco.org know I have been doing some loco detailing and weathering. I got those finished up and started puttering around the layout doing some things I hadn’t had time to do. I am ready to extend the the Terra Nitrogen lead into the closet so I can start putting in a loading facility. That should add a number of tank cars to the operations of the pike. I also hosted 2 gentlemen whom I admire very much their knowledge of model Railroad operations. With their suggestions I have revamped the ops mode of the POCR and pretty much double the number of cars we can handle in a session. That will allow both operators to handle their own locomotive and coordinate their switch moves. Son Sean and I will be putting it to the test shortly. We have divided the layout into zones and will be each responsible for spotting and picking up cars in our areas. We will utilize a section of the wye to interchange cars between the zones. Can’t wait to try it out. I was also able to get 2 ATSF patch to BNSF SD 75M locomotives numbered and ran together today. These are in the Superfleet paint, I like that scheme. Next plan calls for light weathering to add some dirt on the lower parts of the locomotives. I am looking forward to what we can do this fall to the layout! Thanks for looking in! Dale
I have been a bit worried about the amount of time it takes operators to run a session on the layout. We are located a bit off the beaten path out from Tulsa and I’d hate for someone to make the trip and go away feeling shortchanged on time. With that in mind I have been working on some ways to keep a session around 3 hours or so. I recently ran across a program that runs on a smart phone or iPad called Train Crew. Train Crew takes functions that are commonly done by a crew during switching and running and pairs it with a 4:1 fast clock. It provides a timer function as well as sounds and direction/hints to follow. It has a locomotive inspection check list, switching checks including derails at turn outs, brake tests and air checks. Things that will slow down an operations crew to a more timely pace. I will be trying it with our next session. Hopefully it will add more interaction with the RR besides just coupling and uncoupling cars. Train Crew is free and they don’t even ask who you are to use it. If anyone is interested in trying it, PM me and I will send the url. Take care all! Dale
I got the Azatrax crossing control in this evening and put some trees and bushes in around the sensors to hide them. We now have a working crossing lights at Keystone Road. I guess I’ll pick up some overhead crossing signals for the Hwy 167 crossing the SKOL line. It looks like I have started back on the layout! It’s fall/winter so it’s time to make some progress! Ballast is coming soon! Well as soon as I figure out how and color for the rails! The OKC train show is in a couple of weeks so I need to get a list of things to look for. I’ll post up some pictures of the crossing after this coming operations session. Dale
I must confess, I’ve had trouble getting motivated to actually work on the layout lately. I just couldn’t decide what project to tackle first and it’s time to start ballast and track painting. One of the projects I wanted to tackle first was the crossing from the port proper into Terra Nitrogen Fertilizer plant (CF Industries). IRL, there is no connection at the port but it is switched off the BNSF Mainline between Catoosa and Claremore. I have to span a doorway into the attic so I needed a lift out bridge for that. I built a simple lift-out last week and installed it tonight. If the port did connect to Terra, there has to be a bridge over the Vertigris River that is the east boundary to the port property. Tonight I installed the lift bridge and started scenery on it. There will be a 3 span bridge there over the River. We are back to work! Thanks for looking, Dale
I totally understand your point, there are so many projects to tackle on the RGW it can feel overwhelming and actually stifle progress. But long ago I made a ToDo list, so if I head out there by myself and there's no project that is urgent, I take out the list and pick one. The result is quite satisfying. Congrats.
Wow! A most unique and interesting layout. Some of your beat up cars are so ugly they're beautiful! Frisco, no less. Who does Frisco? Very nice.
NICE, but someone vandalized one of your cars! Graffiti all over it!!! I had a box car with my old Lionel 60s era set that was brown and had "Ship It On The Frisco!" on it. Never knew till now what Frisco was, as a kid I thought it was something to do with San Francisco. Liking that grunged out GP38-2!!!!!---John
The Frisco Railroad was a class one line that serviced nine states and had over 9,000 miles of track. Springfield MO was where the line had their maintenance depot and the headquarters office was in St. Louis MO. In 1980 Frisco was merged with Burlington Northern ending about 100 years of service. There are several members on TrainBoard.com that are members of frisco.org also. Dale Baker, Tom Holly and myself are three members to both websites. I know there are more than three, just can't think of whom they are right now. Joe
