Switching at MidWest Plastics.

Spent very little time at the layout this week, but I did take about 20 minutes or so to do some switching at the Midwest Plastics plant.  Here's a few looks at what went on there...

The Midwest Plastics spur is there on the left, with a tank car of resin and a pair of plastic pellet covered hoppers waiting to be lifted out.

And here comes the GTW train (SD40 5931 leading) that's going to switch cars in and out.

The engines beginning their run-around move to get into position to pull the cars out of the industry's spur.

The plant does have one boxcar loading door at the far end. A view from beneath the overpass shows this ex-MTW car as it's being shoved into place.

Here's that same boxcar tucked in behind the fence and quite a bit of overgrowth.

The local railfans (that's me) are happy to see this former DuPont 3-bay covered hopper making an appearance on the line. Plus one, or maybe even two, loaded airslide hoppers as well.

Another look at the covered hoppers as they're entering the industry property.

I failed to get a picture of it in the train, but the GTW also dropped this tank car of resin at the molding plant.  (The tank car was originally labelled as for chlorine service, but I removed that lettering and use these as liquid resin cars - I'm thinking of it as modelers' license.)

And this last shot will be of the engines getting ready to head back the way they came from.  Or maybe they've got some more switching to do at the paper recycler next door to the plastics plant.

That'll be it for now.  Have a nice long weekend everybody.

This and That for May

About all I actually got done on the layout this week was getting just a little bit of scenery materials put down, basically in around the gate area at the end of the scrap yard.  A bit of gravel, some sifted sand and a couple of colours of ground foam all glued in place.This came out looking pretty good.  I had lifted that "sheet metal" fence out to glue down the scenery.  It's really just made of printed paper, and if it gets wet at all the colours will run. I gave the fresh scenery a full 24 hours to dry before putting the fencing back in place.

While I waited for that glue to dry, I stood for a while and stared at the area that I've been thinking of as a trans-loading facility.  But what it really has become is a kind of catch-all where several different kinds of freight cars have been being spotted.  I'm trying to figure out how I might be able to make it look and work a little better.

There's a ramp here for boxcar loading, a loading conveyor for a covered hopper, and 3 large oil tanks for tank car spotting.  I think I want to kind of refine this area next.  That shadowy area at the bottom of the photo is from the highway overpass above.

A different view of the "trans-load".  I'm thinking maybe I'll narrow it down to just tank car and pellet car unloading.  There's already plenty of other docks on the layout for boxcars to go.

In the meantime, I've found a few really little projects to catch up on.  In the photo below there's a weathered whale belly (remember those) tank car that I never use, so I think maybe I'll try to sell that one.  Those two gondolas need one coupler each painted so I'll get to that, and the Ferrous Metals scrap yard sign somehow had one post broken off and needing painted.  The yellow thing in the middle is a piece of painted rail that Iwill be a few feet of safety fence once I get it repaired, 

Also, a gondola scrap load that has had a couple of pieces come loose, a wooden crate that I quickly weathered, and a piece of copper pipe that I painted to perhaps use as a stack on a building somewhere.  That tacky glue is great stuff, as it dries clear.

That's what I've got going on for now.  More about these things another time.

Scrap Yard Part 2

Progress on the extension of the scrap yard.  It's not totally done yet, but getting there.  Here's a few looks at the progress in the area so far:

Here, that pile of scrap metal is set loosely in place and a thin layer of really fine sifted dirt has begun to be spread on the ground.  Where the lighter coloured dirt begins (kind of over near the right-hand corner of the picture) is where the spur track extension begins. I had soldered power leads to the bottom of the rail joiners, so there should be no problems if or when an engine happens to need to run down that far.

The rest of the area has been covered with the sifted dirt, and then I sprinkled the metal "busheling" pieces along the ground and between the rails as well to give the spur a real messy look.  The track ties are pretty well buried in dirt.  Lots of diluted white glue was used all along here to keep all those little bits in place.

More of a close-up view of the area.

A look from the far end shows four gondolas and a GP40 fitting nicely within the scrap yard.  Still work to do on the outside of the fenceline and that roadway.

Now sometimes the engine will actually be able to run deeper into the spur to pick up or to drop off gondolas than before.  I like the look of that.

Same location as above, but this lower angle looks a bit more prototypical.

I'll be trying to get a bit more accomplished on the area in and around the scrap yard soon.

In other news, it was a bit of a whim, but I bought myself a one year subscription to Railroad Model Craftsman this week.  $79 USD worked out to $108 CDN after the currency exchange.  My subscription is scheduled to start with the June issue, which went to press this past Monday, and they expect will be mailed out to me in 2 - 3 weeks, so I'm looking forward to receiving that in the mail.

Have a good week.