Weyerhaeuser Paper Products

 Industry number 2 for my Freeport Industrial Center layout is Weyerhaeuser Paper Products.  This represents an industry that was actually located a couple of miles farther west on the line but it is one I have always been interested in.  Weyerhaeuser receives a lot of traffic, several carloads of paper, each week.  This is enough to justify switching this industry on almost every operating session.

Boxcars are spotted at the loading dock and the car order is not important.  This makes for a fairly easy job.  The types of cars are mostly 40ft to 60ft hi-cube boxcars.  Standard height 50ft cars can also be used.  The most challenging part of the job is that it is a leading point switch so a runaround is always required.

The loading dock is a neat feature of this industry and will accommodate 3 cars typically, though you can fit in 4 cars if they are all 40ft.  On the prototype, there is a roof over the dock and the car spots.  I really wanted to model this feature but there is just not enough room between the industry spur and the mainline to make it look right.  I might do the cover only over the dock.  Below you can see what the building looks like today.

The building is comprised of two Walthers Modern Concrete Warehouse Background Building kits.  This allowed me to build a building that is 33.5" long and about 2" deep.  The footprint of the industry will end up being about 42" wide when it's all done.  The dock is made from one set of Pikestuff Modular Loading Dock kit.  The dock is not yet attached to the building but will be once the site has been properly leveled.  I added a few roof details from the Walthers Roof Details kit.  This is a must as the background building kits have no roof details at all.  There are other similar industries in the Phoenix area and it seems to be common practice to store extra paper rolls outside.  These rolls are huge and I will add a few next to the building once I decide on a modeling method.

Southwest Grocery Distribution

 Just a quick update on the first industry for my layout - Southwest Grocery Distribution.  This is a large concrete warehouse with three car spots.  The entire model is about 42" long and is along the backdrop off the mainline (the mainline on my layout is actually visible staging).  The basic assembly is about 90% complete with the final details to be added after painting.

The first door (the largest) is for refers only.  The middle door can be either refers or general boxcar.  The last door is for boxcars only.  This door arrangement should make for some interesting switching and may require off-spotting cars from time to time.

The industry comfortably holds 3 50' - 60' cars with space between them.  

This started as the Modern Cold Storage Warehouse from Walthers and I unrolled it into a background building.  I had build up a floor and a roof from scraps and Evergreen styrene.  I am really happy with how this is going and will be moving on to the painting stage soon.

More Freight Car Weathering

 I have been watching lots of MRR YouTube videos on all aspects of the hobby.  There are tons of great ideas on how to just anything MRR related.  John Arthur did a video on quick weathering techniques, and I decided to try one the ideas he presented.  This one is very simple but kind of terrifying.  All it takes is a spray can of Vallejo German Field Grey, which is a nice grimy grey-green color.

Vallejo German Filed Grey 28006

Start by removing the trucks.  You then just lightly, and carefully, spray the bottom of the car.  Quick passes at least 12" away is what you want.  It does not take much, as you are going for a subtle weathering effect.

Old MDC 50' tank car before.  I have added metal wheels.

The wheels and trucks are painted by hand.  I use any kind of burnt umber or rust color for the wheels.  The trucks are painted with Vallejo Panzer Aces Track Primer #304.  This has a very nice look that matched the grimy look of the weathering.

After the spray weathering.  I painted the wheels and trucks by hand.

Bottom before

Bottom after.

After the spray paint dries I spray the entire car with a dull coat.  This adds its own weathering feel just by knocking the shine off.  Finally, reinstall you painted wheels and you are done.

Before

After

The overall effect is much more noticable on a lightly colored car so you should be even more careful with them.  The dark cars are a bit more forgiving so it might be good to practice with them first.  This is a really quick and effective technique that will get a new out of the box car layout ready in minutes.  This is also a great starting point for more detailed weathering later on.  More on that in a future post.

What is Going on Here?

 I am not sure why it happened but I just stopped posting anything on this blog.  It has been more than a year without a post.  It's not as it I haven't been doing model railroad things, I just stopped putting anything on the blog about it.  I will be getting back to post on the blog but so far I am off to a slow start.  I will post some of the stuff from last year soon.  Time to get this back on track!

2021 Year in Review

 

At the beginning of the year I set out some goal for 2021 and now it is time to look back and see how I did.  Here is the link to that if you would like to read it.  Lets jump in and review each category and see what I accomplished

Research

This is kind of an ephemeral category and is really hard to quantify.  Most of my site research was easy enough to do, I just drove down the street and looked around.  Most of my research efforts were focused on learning techniques and skills that I would need to move this project forward.  Mostly this involved hours of YouTube video tutorials on everything from scenery to DCC decoder installs.  Below are some of my favorites.  Some are only for eye candy inspirations and others have some real meet to them.

Boomer Dioramas - This is my favorite channel for model railroad content.  Boomer covers it all and his results speak for themselves.  Hours of great material!  I wish there were more hobbyists producing content at this level.

SoCal Scale Models - This is another inspirational channel.  Most of the content is now focused on operations sessions but there is some how-too material in the archive. I love his use of Google Street view photos of actual locations and building s to create his models and backdrops.  I love the vibe of this railroad.

John2618 - This channel was one of the first I discovered when I returned to the hobby and I was blown away by the quality of his work.  He has a small shelf layout in a small bedroom and the detail is amazing.  His truck models are particularly impressive.  Sadly, there has not been any updates for months but there is lots to view in the archive.

Soo the Milwaukee Road - I recently discovered this channel and I am really enjoying the content.  It has a nice mix of modeling, operations and history.  Lots of stuff let to view but good inspiration.

There are many more channels, but these are the ones that have been the most interesting to me so far.  I could do a whole post on YouTube hobbyists.

Planning

I had a very idealistic view of the planning phase at the beginning of the year.  I had visions of using track planning software and maybe even 1:1 printed templates to help plan my new layout.  Well, I found the planning software to be a big pain for the most part.  They have their uses I suppose but for me I just didn't feel like learning how to use it.  In the end I opted for the tried-and-true method of mental visualization and putting down track reality check.  So far, it's working.

Purchases

This is where my idealism and self-restraint went right out the window.  Things started out OK with mostly purchases of older Athearn and MDC kits from eBay.  I was able to get a reasonable collection going for OK prices.  The lack of any train shows until late in the year meant that most of what I bought I bought from eBay, and I paid too much for most of it.  The lack of a cohesive layout plan meant that I over bought most car types as I did not have a clear vision of what was needed.  Also, this shit is just cool and I wanted more and more.  Late in the year I switched from the older 'vintage' kits towards higher quality ready to run from Atlas, Walthers, Excatrail, Scaletrains, and Tangent.  These models are superior in almost every way, but they generally carry a hefty price tag.  I also over bought motive power.  I bought several 6-axle road engines even though I have plans only for a switching layout.  I bought wat too many DC locomotives even after I promised myself that I would only buy DCC/Sound equipped models.  I really should have directed more money towards track and scenery items.

Modeling and Painting

I built a ton of kits for various car types.  I still have many more to build.  I also upgraded most of my cars with wheels, couplers, and proper weight. Some of the cars requires modifications to get them to run properly.  I did several weathering projects as well.  The first half of the year I was very productive in the aspect of the hobby but gradually this tapered off.  I did try and track this activity on my blog but it turned out to be too much of a pain.  I started several Walthers structure kits to help visualize the layout plan but none were finished.  All in all, it was a great year for modeling. 

Summary

I did a crap job of using this blog to document the progress of the hobby this year.  I am much farther along with my shelf layout than is reflected here.  I probably overspent on the hobby this year and at the very least I misspend money - buying too much rolling stock and not spending enough of the infrastructure of the layout.  But I had and absolute blast this year.  It has been worth every minute and every penny!

Here is a video of the first train to run on the new layout.

Shelf Layout Lighting

 Next step in the shelf layout project is to add some lighting.  My room is pretty well lit but I really wanted to highlight the layout.  I am hoping to achieve a shadowbox effect.

The light fixture I selected are from Commercial Electric. These are LED, like most things these days, and come in several different lengths.  I used a mix of 2' and 4' fixtures.  The nice thing about these is they are linkable.  This allows so several fixtures to be daisy-chained together off of a single power cord and switch.  This really simplified the installation.

The overall effect is pretty good but not quite as bright as I had hoped.  I think this will work out fine but  might look into some additional lighting down the road.

Finishing the Shelves

 Once again, I have let several months pass without a blog update.  I have actually been very busy with the hobby, I have just been lazy about posting.  After my last update in August work continued on the new shelf layout.  By the end of the month the shelves were all installed and the foam tops installed.

The shelves are made of particle board with melamine coating. This makes then very hard and slick.  To glue down the foam insulation board I used Loctite Power Grab All Purpose Construction Adhesive.  This stuff worked great.  It is a little tough to use from a tube for this size project so I have to go back and get the caulking gun tubes.

Before I glued the foam down I prepped the ends of the foam boards and the joints in the shelves.  I wanted to make sure the shelves and the ends of the foam did not get glued together incase I ever need to take the layout down.

In order to make sure I got a good bond to the shelf I weighed down the foam with some books.  This worked out great and the foam is not going anywhere.

After the shelves were installed and the foam added I realized that my inside corners were just too sharp and were going to be an issue.  I had some scrap wood so I cut some triangles to make a better transition.  Some scrap foam was added to bring it up to the level of the rest of the layout.

I wanted to make sure the inside corners were as sturdy as the rest of the shelves so I used heavy framing hardware to attach them.  This does not move at all.

I am much farther along with the project now and I will be posting a couple more updates very soon. One thing I wish I had done different at this stage is the inside corners.  I realize now i would have make them much larger but they will still work.  Stay tuned for more updates.