Arbuckle hills

Rod came over this afternoon and painted some distant hills and trees on the backdrop behind the hill I recently created at the end of the aisle between Davis and Dougherty. As you can see in this photo, Rod does very nice work:

Rod also did some more work on the backdrop scene that represents the hills behind the Dolese Bros. quarry at Big Canyon.

Thanks Rod. This is greatly appreciated.

Regards to all, and thanks for reading,
Ron

Dougherty update

Hello again.

Over the past few days I've been working on the base scenery around my township of Dougherty. Here's a photo showing how it is coming along:

I've located the depot and the Southern Rock crusher to show how they'll fit into the scene. I still have a lot of work to do on the Southern Rock quarry, and the track has not yet been ballasted.

I envisage that the area between the tracks and the backdrop will be moderately wooded, with relatively short scrubby trees, reflecting the wooded hills to the north-west of Dougherty. I want the area on the aisle side of the tracks to look like overgrown, somewhat neglected pastures. The real town of Dougherty has a small commercial centre and residential area spread out behind the depot. Someday I might get around to trying to represent that area, but for the time being it will have to wait.

Although I didn't know it when I laid out the track for this town, my track arrangement is not too far from reality, as shown in the following image from Google Earth:

The depot was moved many years ago, but its concrete foundations are visible just below the letters "OK".  I have the mainline and three sidings on the river (aisle) side of the depot, and the house track running behind it although mine should be double ended. Also visible in the lower left-hand corner are the remains of what appears to have been a wye that once stood at Dougherty. I have no information on when that was removed.  (I have placed Southern Rock Asphalt in that location, but I don't actually know where it was located relative to the town.)

Ron

Slow start to 2013

With Christmas and New Year celebrations out of the way, I thought that I would have more time to work on the layout. But that was not to be the case, and I got less done in January than I did in December.

This is a photo of what I did get done. It shows the new fascia panel between Davis and Dougherty. The control panel is for the two staging tracks that run parallel to the hidden connection that allows continuous running on the GC&SF. The CCTV monitors are to monitor the activity on those tracks.

The photo also shows that I've started building the scenery in this area, although I only managed to get the basic 'earth' down so far. The siding tracks on the right are for the Southern Rock asphalt quarry.

As always, thanks for looking.

Ron

December update

Because of our busy social calendar in early December (my birthday) and the lead up to Christmas, I've not been able to spend much time on the layout lately. When work came to a halt last week I was working on three areas, switching between them as I waited for glue, etc. to dry.  Here's a quick update on how they're progressing:

This photo shows the area north of Davis. It took a couple of goes, but I finally got the road edges looking the way I wanted. Now I have to finish the road surface. The farther gravelled area is where the stock pens and loading chute will be located. The closer gravelled area is where livestock cars will be 'bedded'. Before livestock was loaded into stock cars, the floor was covered with a layer of (typically) straw or sand, to a depth of about 10cm (4"). I still have to add a pile of sand for the bedding, and scatter around some old straw, representing straw that was cleaned out of cars before new bedding was added.

I am especially grateful to my friend Gordon, from Texas, for his help with my mini-project on livestock movements. Livestock movement once played a big part on the (real) GC&SF, which even advertised itself as "The cattle route of Texas", and Gordon has happily shared his first-hand knowledge of and experience in that business with me. Thanks for all the help Gordon.

Although it's hard to see, this next photo shows the low hill and quarry located between Davis and Dougherty. I still have a lot more work to do on the quarry, and I'm not entirely happy with the way it's looking at present. The photo also shows the new fascia panel that I have installed here, which incorporates two cut-outs to house CCTV monitors covering the continuous run staging tracks that sit directly below the visible trackage at this point. When the terrain behind the fascia is further developed, I will cut the top of the fascia away to match the profile behind.

The final photo shows the south end of Dougherty, and the small rise that will eventually screen the view across to the quarry at Big Canyon (where the various bottles and tools are sitting). I've started work on the road that will cross the tracks here leading to both the depot (between the tracks, just to the left of the grey area) and the team track area (the gravelled surface at the foot of the hill).

I doubt that I'll get time to do much more work on the layout before Christmas, but with luck I should be able to get some work done between Christmas and New Year.

Thanks for looking.  And please have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year.

Ron  

Scenery update

After letting October slip by without a post, I decided that I should make a bigger effort to keep this blog up to date.  So here's an update on the scenery I've been working on since the last ops session.

This first picture shows the low hill that sits at the end of the Wynnewood/Davis peninsula. The hill will be moderately wooded to provide a sight screen, blocking the view from one side of the peninsula to the other..

The plastic bags are sitting where Johnstone Engineering (Davis) will be located. The single ended siding in the foreground is the Davis stock yard track. The pens and chute will be located on the gravelled area, and stock-car bedding will be done near the end of the track.  The tracks on the far side of the peninsula are for the Kerr-McGee refinery at Wynnewood. (I need a couple of TrainCat models 40' tank car loading platforms for here, but they seem to be unavailable.)

This next photo shows that I've started construction of a hill that will separate Davis from Dougherty.  In reality, that part of the railroad winds through Oklahoma's Arbuckle mountains, and comes to the edge of the Washita River in a couple of places.  Unfortunately, I don't have room to model those scenic features, which is a great pity as I was really hoping to model "The Cut" south of Davis, due to its picturesque nature and its history.

The cut-away section on the right is for the Southern Rock Asphalt quarry, which was actually located some distance from the rail line, but I've used my modeller's licence to relocate it close to town.

The small panel on the right of the fascia controls the hidden staging tracks that sit directly under the layout at this location.  When I rebuild the fascia for this section I will include CCTV monitoring of the staging yard tracks.

This last photo shows a small hill at the south end of Dougherty, which (once tree covered) will screen the view of the Dolese Bros. quarry at Big Canyon (on the other side of the peninsula).  If you look closely you can see the edge of the water pond at Big Canyon, in the background.

The masking tape across the tracks in the foreground is where I will locate a road.  The dark patch just right of centre will become a gravel area for loading/unloading cars on the team track.

Thanks for looking.
Ron

Postcards from Davis

Building good scenery has never been one of my strong skills. That's partly because I'd rather be running trains than building scenery, and partly because I'm colour blind. The last time that I built any scenery was for my N-trak module, and the work had to be re-done because I had made the grass too bright. Or so I was told, but it looked fine to me :-)

With help from Rod and John F, my layout now has some scenery at Davis. There is still more work to be done, and the buildings need to be weathered, but even I have to admit that the improvement is enormous. So much so in fact that the organisers of the 13th National N Scale Convention have asked me for new photos to include on the Convention's layout tour page.

These are compressed versions of the images I'm offering. I wonder which will be accepted.

Thanks for looking.

November 9th operating session

Wow!  Here it is, November already, and I didn't post anything during October. So much for my plan to have at least one post every month...

Anyway, last Friday was once again operating night on the GC&SF. In contrast to the September session when everything ran about as smoothly as one could ever expect, we seemed to have problems right from the start. As a consequence of resolving one problem after another, I didn't remember to take many photos. Luckily, Bethie's catering was up to its usual high standard. (Thanks Beth.)

So here are the best of the few photos that I remembered to take.

Here, Vic and Rod are running the northbound Ardmore local, and preparing to set out a cut of empty gondolas at Dolese Bros. quarry at Big Canyon.

John F ran a southbound fast freight (train 37). In this photo he is doing his best to stay out of the photo, as his train passes through Davis.

Noel and Dennis ran the Pauls Valley turn. Here's Noel driving the train as it leaves Davis heading towards Wynnewood.

Here Barry is uncoupling cars from a northbound fast freight (train 38) at Ardmore.

I'm sorry I don't have more pics from this session, but thanks for looking anyway.