Bridges

For the past few days I've been assembling my Central Valley truss bridge kit. When I first opened the package, I thought it looked quite daunting. However, the kit is very well thought out, and assembles quite nicely. There is a bit of flash and extraneous moulding stuff that has to be removed, but the plastic is very easy to work with, and not as brittle as it first looks.

The only real snag that I encountered was in the final step, which required me to thread some string-line (representing cables) through parts of the structure. Well, after trying for some time, I gave up on that. Now that I know how the kit assembles, (next time) I would thread the line as I assembled the parts, rather than leaving it until last. My 'plan B' is to use some fine spring steel to represent the cables, but I don't have any that is suitable at present.

Here's the kit as it now looks:

This is a very nice looking bridge and should look great once I've painted and weathered it.

The smaller deck-girder bridge is from GreenMax, and will be used as one of the approaches to the truss bridge. There should be two girder bridges end-to-end, but I don't have the space for both of them.

Thanks for looking.

Work resumes ....

I haven't done much on the layout lately, but I received a parcel of GreenMax building kits from PlazaJapan today, and it shook me out of my lethargy.  I think I had become a bit bored with working on Davis, and needed to do something else for a while.

Here's an aerial shot of Davis as it now looks, showing the final road arrangement:

Davis is at the point where I can start to add some basic greenery, but as I'm colour-blind, I'm not game to tackle that without help.

The main (and cheapest) item in the package from Japan was a GreenMax deck girder bridge kit, which I want to use (in conjunction with a Central Valley truss bridge) for the crossing of the Washita River.  Although there was once a truss bridge of some sort across the Washita River between Big Canyon and Gene Autry, it was gone by 1960. However, I don't like the bridge that now stands there, so I'm taking some "modellers' licence".

So this afternoon, inspired by the arrival of the GreenMax bridge, I set to work on the river crossing. I had already done some work shaping the Arbuckle mountains further upstream, using blue foam sheets. But I found that job to be more difficult than it looks. Today I went back to the tried-and-true cardboard strip method for the hill and cliff-face on the north side of the river. Here's how it looked after the cardboard webbing was installed:

The clothes pegs are to hold the webbing together while the glue sets. I found that idea on someone's blog, but I forget whose blog it was. To that unknown person go my thanks.

The webbing isn't as close as I have used previously, but that's because my next step was to cover the cardboard web with masking tape:

The Washita River is actually quite wide at the point that I'm modelling, and the slope down to the river on this side should be quite gentle rather than the steep drop that I have built. I'll take another look at that slope tomorrow, but I don't have enough space to do a more accurate representation, and still include the rugged cliff face at Big Canyon. This final picture shows what the area looks like now, although the view is from the opposite side of the tracks (ie the backdrop side).

Too bad I'm not modelling this scene from the opposite side. My representation could be very close.

To see how the area really looked from the aisle side back in the era that I'm modelling, click here.

Well that's it for today. Thanks for looking.

Operating session 13th July 2012

Here are some of the photos that were taken during the GC&SF ops session held on Friday 13th July.

Is Friday the 13th unlucky? It certainly was for John F. who featured in every disaster we had for the evening. They weren't John's fault ... but we still blamed him anyway.

In this first pic, Ron and Noel are discussing a train in staging, while John C (yard operator at Ardmore) and John F are working a north-bound freight train.

Brendan and Vic operating the Pauls Valley yard. Noel is watching as Dennis is switching at Wynnewood.

Rod (in the back) is running a passenger train while Barry and Greg watch.

Charlie is running the Ardmore local, and is switching some cars at Dougherty.

John F, Brendan and Vic contemplating what has to be done, while a north-bound train load of tank cars passes through town.

Dennis, operating the Pauls Valley local freight, waits for an extra driven by Rod to clear the main.

Ooops ... Dennis has just discovered that the battery in his wireless throttle has died, while John F was driving a train through town.

Rod in the background, John F and John C.  We had a lot of fun....

Davis update

Today I painted the rail at Davis.  Before picking up the brush I did some research into what other modellers do to make their track look more realistic. I was tempted to try painting the ties and rail in the secondary track differently to the mainline track, to represent the fact that it received less maintenance. I finally decided that I should learn to crawl before I try walking, and left the ties alone.

After considering and trying several options, I brushed Floquil Roof Brown on the sides of the rail.  It didn't go on as thick as I would have liked, but seemed okay at the time.  Now that I look at the photos though, I think it needs another coat.

The plastic rail joiners in the photo were installed when my layout was still operating on DC/cab-control. I plan to rewire the two turnouts in this photo as I did with the ones here, and when I do that I will also replace the plastic joiners with metal ones.

Here's a view of Davis with the roads installed and the rails painted:

Thanks for looking.

Refinery train at Davis

The rest of the tank cars that I had on order arrived today, and I wasted little time in replacing their pizza-cutter wheelsets with low-profile wheels, before putting the cars into service.

Here is the train, northbound at Davis:

As you can also see in the photo, I've started painting the styrene roads with several shades of grey to represent asphalt surface that has been installed and repaired at different times. Once that's done, I'll glue it into place, and then do some more work on the surface with chalks and pencils.

Street building at Davis....

Over the past few days I've been cutting and painting styrene sheet for the streets at Davis. The following photo shows the general arrangement, but I (then) still had to cut and fit the bits that will go between the rails:

The photo also shows that I've cut and installed the brick sheet for the passenger platform at the Davis depot.

I was originally planning for all the roads to represent asphalt surfaces, but after spending some time "driving" around Davis on Google Streetview, I decided that the roads between the station and the backdrop will be concrete with kerbing. This photo shows those sections after I have scribed the gaps in the the concrete surface, and added the kerbing (which is 0.040" x 0.040" styrene strip).





















I still have to paint these sections a light grey to represent concrete.

I'm planning to put several buildings or building flats along the wall behind the depot, to represent the business district of Davis.

The two roads that lead off the aisle side of the depot have been painted in various shades of grey to represent asphalt that has been laid and repaired at different times. Once all the roads have been installed I will attack them with chalks to give them a well-used appearance.

Tank cars

Today I placed into service the first of several batches of new tank cars which will run in my "refinery extra" that switches tank cars at the Kerr-McGee Refinery at Wynnewood.

This first photo shows the six tank cars lined up on the siding at Wynnewood. The silver cars are stock Bachmann 36'6" single-dome tank cars lettered for TEXACO. The black cars are Micro-Trains 10,000 gallon single-dome tank cars that I painted and lettered for TEXACO, using decals that I got from a custom decal maker who is no longer in business. (That's a pity, as these were the easiest decals I've ever worked with.)
Here's a photo showing a side-by-side comparison of the two types of tank car:

I'm very impressed with the Bachmann car. It has very fine details, low-profile metal wheels and operating body-mounted knuckle couplers (although I find them to be a bit big). It compares very well with Atlas and MTL offerings, and makes a nice change from the MTL single dome car.

Jerry's decals were a delight to work with, and they're the easiest decals I've ever applied. I used Tamiya TS-29 Semi-Gloss Black (spray can) for the base coat, and then applied Testor's Glosscote (spray) for a smooth surface to apply the decals on. When the decals were dry I gave the cars a coat of Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear (spray can).  I only wish that it was that easy to paint and decal ATSF box cars.

I also have on order a Micro-Trains runner pack of TEXACO tank cars, and I can't wait to have the whole train in action.

Postscript: Since painting these cars I've come to the conclusion that this black/white scheme is a not correct. I've yet to find a photo of a car in this scheme, and judging by the photos I've seen, it seems that most of the cars in the 3XXX number range were 8000 gallon capacity or thereabouts (not 10k as these MTL cars are supposed to be). Oh well, they're not the only foobies I have on the layout, and they'll do as stand-ins until I can replace them.  (That's a pity though, as I like this scheme.)