Loads In, Empties Out

From Rich Randall

I have a double-sided backdrop on my layout where there will eventually be a “Loads In – Empties Out” function. The St. Maries side has a plywood mill, currently in place, which will receive empty bulkhead flatcars and produce loaded cars. The door will be a rollup type.

On the other side of the backdrop, Marengo, there will be a plant of some kind that receives loaded bulkhead flatcars and produces empty cars. I was looking for a quick way to put a building in place on the Marengo side. I was constrained by existing trackage.

Rummaging through my stuff, I came across a Broadway Limited Cannery kit. I had three of these at one time since they are very flexible. The kit has material to build a factory with corrugated sides and roof, using plenty of heavy styrene sheets, factory windows, and aluminum corrugated siding strips.

So I devised a way to place the building on an angle so that a single car could be placed inside.

 

It took quite a bit of trial and error to create a design that would clear the cars adequately. I used miscellaneous plastic pieces to strengthen the styrene joints.

The conventional swing doors are made of wood and will be operated by some kind of screw mechanism attached to the tops of each door. This will be a subject of a future exercise.

I weathered the structure, but maybe too much.

Master Builder – Scenery

From Jane Clarke

South Mountain Division Achievement Coordinator Jane Clarke reports that John Pursell of Chambersburg, PA received his Master Builder – Scenery certificate this past year. To earn this John demonstrated “the prototypical rendering of scenic effects from the ground up” on his layout. John has been a frequent contributor to the newsletter. His efforts at home and at the Cumberland Valley Model Railroad Club have graced the covers of Wheel Report editions last winter and spring. Pursell’s HO scale 12 x 28” layout is around-the-walls construction, using L-girder and plywood, set at a height of 53”, and operated with MRC DCC. The backdrop is painted hardboard and the scenery is on foam with a glue shell. Based in the 1950s, the layout depicts the bridge crossings over the Delaware River between Easton, PA, and Phillipsburg, NJ.

Cumberland Valley Yard Sale

The Cumberland Valley Model Railroad Club will be holding a model train yard sale on Saturday, 19 June, in the parking lot of the clubhouse at 440 Nelson St, Chambersburg, PA.

They have items in all scales [engines, rolling stock, structures, scenery materials, tinplate].

Hours are 8:00 AM until roughly 1:00 PM, WEATHER PERMITTING If it rains, we don’t sell trains!

Additionally, if any SMD member has some of their own things to sell, they are welcome to set up a table. The club will have plenty of room.  You must provide your own table and cashbox. 

SMD members should contact the club at (717) 263-6447 and ask for SMD member John Pursell. [contact SMD at southmountaindiv@gmail.com and we will help you get in touch with John. -ed.]

What’s on Your Workbench?

From Don Florwick

Popping into my layout room the other day with no real purpose in mind, I spied a note on one of my staging yard switch panels. The note was reminding me to relabel the panel to clear up an inconsistency between adjacent yard panels.

I have three staging yards (left) along one wall of my layout room stacked one above the other and the 4-yard panels for the three staging yards are similar for each yard. Each panel has a rotary switch to choose the proper staging track. This makes picking a staging track pretty straight forward for my operating crews at the Pittsburgh & South Pennsylvania (P&SP) RR.

So why the note? It seems that for some reason unbeknown to me, I labeled this panel for the middle yard, Wheeling Staging, showing yard track #1 on the wall side of the shelf, whereas the other two yards had track #1 as the first track on the aisle side of the shelf. This inconsistency had not caused major problems but it had caused confusion from time to time if an operator failed to look at the yard panel track diagram before picking their track with the rotary switch, hence the note to self to fix it someday.

I try to remove inconsistencies from my railroad’s infrastructure when I see they create confusion. Operators are busy enough minding their schedule and deciding whether they have the authority to make their movement. 

Making the change was rather easy. I used a piece of an old credit card to remove the dry transfer labeling (left) from the track and rotary switch areas and I repainted the rotary switch area.

I waited a day to let the new paint around the rotary switch area dry. The dry transfers were applied and then over-sprayed with dull cote (below) to protect them.

Total time to make the change; about two hours of puttering around. Another inconsistency was cleared from the P&SP.

Jay Beckham’s open house 12 December

Mark your calendar. Jay Beckham is having an open house at his Berkeley Springs, WV,    O scale, 2-rail layout on 12 December from 1 to 5 PM. A mask and physical distancing are required to visit his 60’ x 30’ layout, based on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The layout operates with NCE DCC and C/MRI CTC signaling.

Jay and his crew have done a lot of work this year. Find Jay online at jaysoscalelayout.blogspot.com and see more of the recent progress on his layout at the SMD Facebook page. If you plan to visit, private message Jay on Facebook with your name, scale you model, and city where you live. Or send an email to the SMD at southmountaindiv@gmail.com and we will put you in touch with Jay.