Hi everyone! Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of your community. I grew up in Fontana and was always fascinated by the impressive Kaiser Steel mill there -- so I've decided to model a generic steel mill in N Scale. I've spent the last year educating myself on the entire steel making process, which has been quite an eye-opener. I found a couple of particularly good books written by Dean Freytag (The History, Making & Modeling of Steel) of and Bernard Kempinski (The Model Railroader's Guide to Steel Mills) on modeling steel mills. This will be my third go-around with model railroading. I built an HO layout when I was 12 years old (it was on 4' x 8' plywood that sat on saw horses). I built a more sophisticated N scale layout in my 20s (as a bachelor). Then I got married. Thirty years later I'm on the verge of retirement and looking forward to having something to keep me busy. Anyway, I've been honing my track plan for about six months now - although I've got some potential planning challenges to overcome still. Perhaps the biggest is waiting for one of my two kids to finally move out (19 and 22) so I can hijack a bedroom and actually get the project's benchwork started. LOL!
Welcome! Also from SoCal here. You're also going to have the added challenge of having to model the nearby West Colton yard (at least part of it)
Yes, the Colton yard ... I remember taking a tour of the Colton yard with my parents a long time ago. I think it was after they had put in an automated hump yard system. Drove by it a million times and as a kid always passing the time looking at the rolling stock sitting on the tracks.
