Sounds great to me John. I'm going to the hobby shop in a few minutes to buy more 0.030x0.060 strips and 0.188 square clear styrene. Should be able to finish the ice house platform tonight less stairway. Edit: changed the size of the square clear styrene from 0.150 to 0.188. I measured the hatch opening on a refrigerator car and it's 0.20 inches square. Joe
I finished the ice house loading platform. Tomorrow afternoon will start on the building and the platform from the loading platform to the building. Joe
Very nice! but I'm curious how your icehouse forces will get those blocks of ice into boxcars without roof hatches?
That's funny!!! They use a big mallet. I didn't feel like digging through about 250 railcars to find a couple of refrigerator cars so used some boxcars as a substitute. They are a little taller than my reffers and that helped make sure the ramps would clear. I used a 0.020 inch spacer between the boxcar and ramps when gluing for extra clearance. It would be embarrassing for the crews if a railcar hit a ramp. Joe
Joe, Let me say nice work on the dock and add my 2 cents worth of info. First, I am 80 now but many years back, during 1960, 61, and 62, I worked on the PFE dock in El Paso. A great job for a young jock punk! Drank a lot of cold beer. The size that John Moore came up with seems to be correct or very close as I can recall. The blocks we worked with were 300 pounders. They moved down the length of the dock, from the ice house, on a chain conveyer system. We would strip a block off of the chain, pull it out to the open bunker and then, using a large heavy pick would break into thirds or halves and drop the pieces into the bunker. After adding picked ice to all 4 bunkers we would add a bag of salt to each and I think that was a 25lb. bag. BTW, the ramps stood up vertically until someone walked out on them and locked them down. Keep up the great work and above all, stay well and have fun, Carl
Thank you Carl for your compliment and information, with that think I will make two ramps in the up position. Joe
Nice job on this Joe! You got me interested and I came across this... https://www.google.com/search?q=tra...mg&ei=x4rFXr6BIsiI-gT0j6DIAQ&bih=551&biw=1280 I have some ice tongs hanging up in our living room that were from my dad's place when he was growing up. The family lived on a lake in southern New Jersey and they cut ice blocks out of the lake and stored them in an ice house between the lake and the main house, covering the ice in saw dust to help keep it through the spring and summer. My dad lived in a room attached to the ice house as a boy. Sumner
I got the basic building done for the ice house and will dress it up tomorrow afternoon. Attached fine grit sandpaper to the roof of the ice house and loading platform. The loading platform has developed a slight bow so I'm going to double up each corner with another support beam a quarter inch longer. When I'm ready to install it will drill four holes in the base where the beams are and glue one end. After the glue has set put weight on the other end and glue. The bases are quarter inch Birch plywood. Joe
Finished the ice house complex this afternoon and all of the pieces are glued to the base. The ice house building measures 9.6 inches long (128 feet) 2.7 wide (36) and 3.8 inches tall (50.6 feet). Tonight I'm going to make several telegraph poles, have 27 complete on the layout and 57 left to do. It should be enough to do the areas I want, the mainline alone will use 66. The others will be in the yard and locomotive service. Joe
Today I made 20 telegraph poles and started back to work on the oil platform. I had almost forgotten about the platform and the rest of the depot. When I was at Lowe's yesterday I found a one inch diameter dowel rod that would be perfect to make small fuel tanks. Joe
I almost finished the oil depot loading platform, only have the handrails on the end with the stairway, cut and stow the hoses and final paint in the morning. Joe
I finished the oil depot loading platform and glued it to the base along with the two large tanks. Now need to get a one inch dowel rod to make small tanks. If I can find the fencing material will install that too. Tomorrow I'm going to do some scenery on module 04 where the ice house is and module 06 where the oil depot is. Will blend the industries bases with the surrounding areas and cut a road on module 06 from the oil depot to where the Van Buren Arkansas Depot will be on module 07. My next TV tray project is the Frisco Ft Smith Depot that I started several weeks ago. Have the walls cut out and a couple of windows cut. After cutting the remaining windows and doors will start assembling. Joe
I used drop line for the hoses from Walmart fishing section. It's the same line I used for cables on the Arkansas River Bridge. I'm going to glue and paint a fitting on the end of each line for the different types of fuel, blue for regular, red for ethyl and green for diesel. Joe