Thanks for posting! It looks like you got a lot done already since the move/ disassembly. Hopefully there were no problems with the layout operationally?
Thank you! The layout was designed for move - so no, there was no problem getting it back on it's 'track'. yes, a few trees were uprooted, and a few small details fallen off from the buildings - nothing that a pair of tweezers and glue couldn't handle. Thank you!
Well, it definitely seems like the old days again! Fortunately I have more time for making models, and also upgraded my arsenal with some very important tools that were long overdue - a Dremel rotary tool and an airbrush are the top two recent acquisitions. So when I started working on the oil pier, the focus was more on using the tolls as well as building the model! Hence there is not going to be a step by step construction post for this one because we simply didn't have the patience to take photos after every step - we were two excited to build it and then take it straight to the paint booth... I mean the cardboard carton that acted as the paint booth! First, here is the in progress photo of the facilities of the oil pier. Given how small this pier is - there is basically nothing much in terms of operations. Small ships/barges unload oil that is stored in the 4 relatively small oil storage tanks. Then the the tanker cars are loaded and the oil is shipped to the local businesses. The oil storage tanks and the ships were built long ago, so I started with the tanker car loading platform and the small pump-house-cum-control room. The material of choice however has changed considerably - except the base which is cardboard, everything else is either styrene or plastic. As per my trademark 'scrap-building', I have used some leftover parts from the ME trestle kit, as well as the sprue of the same kit used to make the piping. My initial thought was to simply model a couple of hose pipes connected to the ship to simulate unloading, much like below. However, when I started finding some prototype photos, I found that this is not really how the oil unloading happens - not even in the smallest of the ports. What they use is something like this, called the loading arms. So I found a few drawings online, and decided on this one - simple enough for my tiny oil pier, but keeps is real and prototypical. The material I used for the piping is also something very new to me - aluminium tubes. Though I have used them before, I have just cut them in straight sections. Given I did not have the L pipe joints in N scale, I had to use my new Dremel rotary tool to cut, bend and shape the pipes - sorry, no progress photos from here onward since we were building and discovering quite a few things at the same time, we didn't really think of taking progress shots. So here is the final result - all weathered to match the tone of the rest of the layout - the only thing pending now is completing the mooring on the ship, and then this section of the layout is done.
Thanks Phillip! Unfortunately the ships were built much before I joined the forum - in 2008-2009, and the build threads were in All Model Railroading forum. The forum is now dormant and most of the photos are gone since the old threads were archived. You might still find some of them in the scratch-building section of the forum. Look for threads with titles 'N scale scratch-building: Project 1' to 'N scale scratch-building: Project 7'. Thanks Alan! If it makes you feel any better, I have started using more and more items that are 'purchased' - like the styrene sheets, rods and beams, metal pipes etc. But old habits die hard - so the 'scraps' make their way in some way or the other!
Well, the next endeavor was to complete a project that seemed deceptively small and simple in the beginning - completing the port office and a small junk yard. For the office building, I went back to my roots of using paper - the brick texture is a scalescenes texture printed directly on a 50 GSM water color paper. Then that sheet was pasted on a 100 GSM water color paper to make a solid brick texture board suitable for N scale. Windows and doors are Grandt Line products, the corrugated shed is made of styrene corrugated sheets. Now to the next step - it is very unusual to see a port with railroad not to have a junk yard. However, given how small this layout is, there is not enough space to make a proper junk yard, so I decided to use the real estate available at the base of the grain conveyor tower to make a old junk yard. Given this is a 1960s layout, I also took the opportunity to bring the 'ghosts of steam' in my theme - in the early days of N scale I purchased a Bachmann set that had a tiny 0-6-0 - lovely little engine that never worked properly. Some point since then I was irritated enough to disassemble the whole engine trying to fix it - never succeeded. The engine remained disassembled and in reality in the status of scrap ever since in a little box - the only thing that was intact is the tender. When I decided to build the junk yard, I just took out those parts, weathered them heavily to create the main contents of the junk yard. In addition, I threw in some more heavily weathered stuff whatever I could find - an odd wheel, some broken corrugated sheets and some literal junk. Added some small amount of tall grass too so that it looks more realistic. Finally, I also managed to paint and add some rooftop gears in some of the buildings - these are all from a Corner Stone series - first spray painted, and then I used dry brushing to highlight the vents
Nimo, your waterfront layout is great! You have a lot of detail in your scenery and I really like the ships in port. How long is the largest ship? Are they kits or scratch built? Keep up the good work! Joe
Thanks Joe! All the ships are scratch-built, taking inspiration from actual ships. They are all made of card boards - the largest one, Betelgeuse is a small container ship and is about 300 scale feet long, the smallest one is a freighter, a little over a 100 scale foot long. I am yet to build a few more boats, barges and one more freighter.
Nimo, WOW!!! Great job on the scratch-built ships. I've always wanted to do that with US Navy ships but never got to do it. Your ship projects gives me inspiration to try it. I have two US Navy freight cars that would be perfect for a Navy dock scene. One time I did scratch-build a car float barge large enough to hold six 40 foot boxcars but never used it on my layout at the time. Joe
Thanks Joe! If you are building a US navy dock/dry dock, I think the best bet will be to go for plastic kits. There are tons of excellent plastic kits there at 1/144 scale that will easily pass for 1/160 - Revell, Airfix etc. Just take a quick look at Amazon. Try to buy the ones that comes with paints included, so that you won't even have to bother about finding the right color. Happy Halloween! Kaustav
I haven't looked at this thread in a while and all I can say is WOW! It's been cool to watch the progression in tallents and other areas you have both made as you've continued your layout. All of the scenes, ships and details are outstanding.
Thank you so much! Glad that you are enjoying this layout. Now that it is nearing the end, I think I will have opportunities to play with it more. Will post some videos soon so that you all can see how it looks when the trains run.
Happy New Year! After a little pause from Model Railroading (which is never surprising nowadays), I acme back to complete the oil facility. All major components were completed a few months back, the only thing pending were the pontoon rafts to separate the ship from the port quay wall, and then completing the mooring to tie the ship to the dock. So here are the little pontoon rafts - nothing special really. dimensions are 30 X 25 X 8 in millimeters, plus the tires. Made of styrene, and bitts are my customary toothpicks. I think I am getting the hang of the air brush thingy! Once these are built, the only thing remaining was to tie them up with a chain and sandwich them between the ship and the port wall. My wife donated me with one of her cheap chains, so I painted it and used them to tie these up to the bitts. Once done, I completed the mooring of the ship with 4 lines which I think is sufficient for a ship of this size. So here are the final photographs: Here is a helicopter view of the facility that clearly shows the placement of the pontoon rafts and the whole facility. Now, here I would like to take the opportunity to thank my dear friend John Milford for his invaluable guidance on everything related to ships, ports and all the nitty-gritty of how to model a realistic port scene. It started with this very model - Sirius, the Oil Tanker, and then it continued throughout the other aspects of this project for lat 8 years- thank you John!
That aerial view sure shows the level of detail you have put into this layout. That is quite an accomplishment you two!
20 months since my last post in this thread, and many of you might be thinking that this as good as an archive - well, Wrightsville Port is back to prove you wrong! So this is what happened in between - I moved to my new apartment back in March - 6th home for the layout in it's 7+ years of existence. Here is the new set-up: IMG_20180417_093309 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr The new house and other projects did keep me away from the layout in most part, however, I did manage to add small details over time. and finally, I believe I am back at the workbench to see this project through and try to bring this layout to completion by end of this year and then this thread can truly become an archive! Here are some shots with some new details and weathering that I added in last few months. There are a few new builds that I will start very soon, but before that I want to complete proper and believable weathering on all existing elements on the layout. Abandoned factory. More to come on this: IMG_20180919_002517 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr IMG_20180919_002622 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr IMG_20180919_002801 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr Waterline details - more color and texture added: IMG_20180919_003238 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr More weathering on the main warehouse: IMG_20180919_003348 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr More rust and weathering on the fence and other metal parts: IMG_20180919_014926 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr IMG_20180919_003419 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr And finally, just a unique angle and frame that I have never tried before! IMG_20180919_014742 by Trains And Dioramas, on Flickr Stay tuned, more to come.
