The Power House
The large manufacturing plant will include it own power house. The power house has the most elevated track on the module. This is to suggest that in the past the track had a coal pocket below, which has since been filled in when the boilers were converted to oil. So now it receives oil in tank cars, which I haven't often seen modeled. (Now that I think of it.. I don't recall ever seeing an oil fired power plant modeled)
I used Walthers "Cornerstone Modulars" for the walls and was very, very pleased. I have been using DPM modular walls for years so this process isn't new to me. In my opinion, The Walthers product assembles easier, looks better, and is more versatile then the DPM product. I am looking forward to using the "Cornerstone Modulars" in the future. My ultimate plan for the structure is to light it, inside and out, have some interior, and finally to have a working smokestack. I have have a great smoke generator for years and this will be my first chance to really use it.
The non-rail side of the power house has the most interesting features, unfortunately the side that I'll operate the yard from is the other side. At this point the structure is completely assembled and I had begun the weathering on the roof.
A closer look at the roof shows the rusty metal. This was the first time I had used this particular combination artist acrylics colors. Following an article in a magizine (I don't remember where) I used a combination of
Burnt Siena, Raw Siena, and Red Oxide.
I have since added a fourth color to that mix, Burnt Umber. The Burnt Bumber adds the look of old pitted rust. I'll have to point out an example of using the Burnt Bumber in a later posting.
The main loading dock and steps are straight from the Walthers kit, I used a sharp knife to scar up the edges and create the look of old concrete. For concrete color I really like Testors "light aircraft grey" as a starting color, and then weather it from there.
Most of these photos show empty window openings where this photo shows the windows in the open position. I temporarily taped the open windows in place for a couple of photo shots. Because they are fragile, I won't install them until I'm very close to finishing the structure. I had to use two window castings to create one open window and because of this I'm all out of castings.
The yard opertors side doesn't have much detail and I really wanted to have a couple of open windows on this side but I ran out of extra window frames. The blank wall on the far right is the end of the building that would have the boiler. I'm hoping to fit a brass tube through the small chimney to have "smoke" coming from it as well as the main smoke stack. The detail that will be on this side will be the piping for unloading the tank cars.
Yard Structures
I used a American Model Builders Laser kit for the yard office. I was my first laser kit and it was great, just follow the instructions. For the carfloat office I used an A M Models kit, I have a few more little structures from them that will go on the module.
The float office is on the left and the yard office on the right.
The top floor of the office has interior detail. I hope to fit a bulb in through a tube from the bottom. I like to use 14v bulbs at 12v, they have nice yellow glow and are not bright, they last longer too. In this case I might try a 16v bulb at 12v. This may suggest that the night yard master is only using a desk lamp.
The yard office is on a small hill near the center of the yard. The structure by its self wasn't quite tall enough for what I wanted. I still have to figure out how I want to attach this structure. I'm also going to build a foundation that a permanantly attached, that way I can make it part if the scenery.
The Float Bridge office needs a gardrail across the front and side to protect it from vehicles, I'll have to get to that. I did put a power cord in the 7up machine....
This structure doesn't have an interior but I will try a 16v bulb at 12v on this one too.
Carfloat Apron Structure
The super structure for the carfloat apron is a greatly modified Walthers kit which I bought already assembled from a friend of mine. I have gotten most all of my information about carfloats from the Rail-Marine Information Group , they also have aYahoo group that has lots of information at Railmarineops.
So this structure doesn't look right to me, I can't find any photos anywhere of a sturcture that looks like this. So I concluded that this is another of Walthers "sort-of prototype" structures. In any case I decided to make some changes to get it looking closer to what I have seen in photos and drawings.
Here is one of the two truss towers for the apron lifting structure. I have added a control house for the operator. If you look at the top of the tower you will see that the last truss section is smaller that the other 4 sections. The Walthers model had a girder equal in height to this small truss section which hung between the towers. This is I believe the reason for this section to be smaller than the others. On every photo or drawing I have seen of this type of apron structure, the girder held up by the towers would rest on top of the towers. This issue was the biggest issue I had this the kit.
Here is the two towers in position with the float apron. The apron is also a Walthers sort-of prototype, I hope to scratch build a new apron in the future, but at the time I just needed to get the module operational.
The new girder is scratch built with scrap sheet and evergreen styrene L-girder. The railing is from my scrap box. I have reciently found that Tichy makes fantastic industrial pipe railing. I wish I had used those instead. The long steel sided shed on top of the girder is from the Walthers kit.
The plate B X-29 boxcar gives some size perspective to the whole structure.
I neglected to take any photos of the creation of the lifting mechanism that hangs from the girder. So the next images have the entire structure assembled and I am again checking that everything fits properly.
In this image I have been finishing a lot of foundation work for the apron and lifting structure. I also have a couple of coats of paint for water, a nice shade of polluted harbor green.
The lifting structure attaches to its foundation by magnets glued to a square styrene base. The towers are also glued to the styrene. You can just see the round magnet at the bottom of the tower. The structure is removed from the module and placed in a padded box when the module is transported.
