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HO scale freight yard

Dan’s been back in touch with his HO scale freight yard – you can see the fun he has switching trains:

“The next local on the tour is at Lowell Junction.

There are 5 jobs to switch. Bag-O-Crete (premixed bags of concrete), Gilmore industries, Carling Black Brewery, a transfer warehouse, and a freight house.

There is a small yard and a connection to Ayer with the New Haven Railroad.

Photo 1. A progress view of the layout. Lowell Junction is to the left looking toward the door. The the yard track is Lowell which is under Lowell Junction. You can see the return loop that will be covered with the mountain and and what will become the Bellirica and Winchester area.

Photo 2. The beginning of the mountain that will cover the return loop.

Photo 3. More of the construction.

Photo 4. the other side of the mountain. The return loop and switch work under the mountain is fully accessible.

Photo 5. The bagged concrete factory. Also viable is the junction to Ayre and the New Haven interchange track.

Photo 6. Gilmore industries.A metal specialty company.

Photo 7. General view of Lowell Jct. Nearly finished look with the lower track plan for Lowell and staging.

Photo 8. New Haven interchange entering Lowell Junction.

Photo 9. Switching the brewery.

Photo 10. The station at Lowell Junction. This one of the commuter stops as well as a milk train stop. There is also an RDC that comes from Ayre to bring passengers for stops to or from Boston. There is a military base at Ayre so there are commuters coming and going from there.

Photo 11. The eastern part of Lowell Jct. It also shows the car card holders for each location that is switched. At the beginning of an operation session, the car cards are in the proper pocket and the cars are in the correct places.

The incoming local has the cars and car cards for the local from the Winchester yard. When the job is done cards are placed in the industry pockets and the picked up cards and cars are returned to Winchester yard.

Dan”

A big thanks to Dan for sharing more pics of his HO scale freight yard. Hope you enjoyed them as much as me.

If you missed Dan’s last post, it’s here: HO scale switcher.

Also, it quite reminded me of Tom’s post: HO scale scrap yard.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

PPS More HO scale train layouts here if that’s your thing.

N scale waterfall

Dean’s been in touch with his N scale waterfall that he’s added to his layout:

“Al, cheers, from Dean in New Mexico!

I was trying to get this out a month ago, but a required knee replacement set me back. I’m now to the point that I can get back to my computer.

Here’s the latest progress on my Conejo Valley Railroad: finishing (almost) the scenery.

I constructed and attached all outer boards: two back boards painted sky blue (2 oz blue acrylic added to ¾ of a pint of white wall paint), one on the back and one on the right of the layout.

And two black fascia boards for the remaining two sides.

I’ve covered the landscape of the entire layout using my usual brown basecoat followed by earth, burnt grass, and light green fine turf scattered over diluted white glue

Next, I added small bushes and trees fixed with dilute white glue.

Western United States streams usually have a series of rapids followed by straight runs. I used successive layers of ¼” foam covered with plaster cloth to simulate this. The final river is one of the few things I’ll need to finish soon

Note the initial lower layer is still covered with aluminum foil on the left.

I built up the large waterfall by laying down a shaped layer of white glue on parchment paper. After it dried, I added streaks of more white glue to give it some structure. Here it is dried after dry brushing with white paint.

After cutting with scissors to fit the slot in the rock and bending to form where it went over, the waterfall was attached with hot glue.

Then the upper river was built up with three layers of white glue.

Here’s what the falls and upper river look like finished.

And a train runs by it.

Thanks, Al.

Dean”

A big thanks to Dean for sharing his N scale waterfall addition!

Here’s a few more water posts if that’s what you’re after:

N scale water

How to make water for model railroad

HO scale waterponds

N scale waterfall

Model train water effects

Cheap way to make a water feature for model train

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you get going on your layout, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

PPS More N scale layouts here if that’s your thing.

HO scale switcher

Dan’s been back in touch with his HO scale switcher:

“Alastair, this will help answer some of your readers questions.

This set is the Woburn switching local area of the layout. I will use the locals to help readers see more detail of the layout. All names of businesses are from Walt’s family or local model friends.

Overall look at Woburn. The RDC may or may not be in the mix when the local works the job. This complicated the switch job.

Switching activity at the mill.

Work in the yard.

General view of the town and the RDC (rail diesel car) leaving Woburn.

The last of the arrivals getting a taxi.

All industries and switching locations have cards like these on 4×5 cards to show what can be spotted and in some cases the order the cars can be spotted.

This is an example of the switch list each local has when they leave the yard. They have the railroad’s reporting letters, car number and what to do with each car.

We use car cards for all of the cars on the railroad. These car cards have info as to where they go next . (The cards have a pocket for the destinations.) Either to a local when arriving from Boston or to a train to go to Lowell at the opposite end of the layout. Each local has the cards for the train and then bring back the cars and car cards from the work done.

Between sessions two or three of us change the card’s destination (There can be 2,3,or 4 possibilities as the destination pieces can be filliped end to end or over and end to end.) We then make up the trains for the next ops session.

Once you do this a few times it is not a confusing as it seems.

The Woburn Local is the most difficult local. As you will see later, each local has it’s own set of issues.

This area is from Wilmington to Bellirica. A local is assigned to this area. There are 6 industries. Rake’s Rock Works, monuments. Swift Packing, Brenda’s Ice Cream, Knorr oil, Goins Lumber and supplies, and the Bellirica Freight Station.

This local has facing and trialing turnouts and must get clearance from the dispatcher to enter the mainline for a run around to get the cars in the correct position. We have over the line trains running while the locals work.

The over all view from Wilmington to Bellirica. The town names are from Boston to Lowell in the correct order. The industries are fictional for Walt’s wants.

Part of the town of Wilmington.

Morning activity in town.

Partial view of the locals job.

The Swift packing house is in the background. Doing research, Walt found out that meat was shipped from Chicago (VIA Canada) and then locally cut up for the various cuts of meat to be shipped locally.

The rock works. The green board along the edges is for the car card work when we are sorting the cars for switching. This way we don’t put the cards on the layout or cars.