February update

A ground-level view of Hympoak, a new industry on my layout. The prototype takes deliveries of plastic pellets in hoppers and produces plastic merchandise shopping bags. 

Greetings everyone,

I'll start with a tip: a full time job and two kids under four years old really cuts into your modelling time! This explains the long absence from posting anything other than prototype photos of Area H for the past few months.

I have made slow progress sorting out all sorts of little things on the layout. Here's what I've been working on

Hymopak

In this post, I shared research and photos about Hympopak, an industry I wanted to model. It takes rail deliveries of plastic pellet hoppers and turns them into shopping bags, like the kind you get at Home Depot and other large retail stores. 

The build

When I kitbashed Korex -- another plastic pellet factory on my layout (see here) -- I had trouble keeping the styrene roof and walls from bowing. For this background building flat I wanted to use a more solid base so I wouldn't have this problem again. I built the base of the building out of scrap plywood then laminated styrene sheets to that. This seemed to work well as it kept the long walls arrow straight. The building is long, about 40 inches, so any bowing would really show up and spoil the effect.

I used some scrap MDF for the roof of the building. I set the roof slightly below the edge of the wall to create a little "lip" above the roof.

This is the wood base I used as the structure for the building. The walls are plywood, the roof is two pieces of MDF. 

The worst part of the build was cutting the openings for the windows.

I used brick styrene sheets for the walls, a strip of regular styrene painted a concrete colour for the foundation and corrugated styrene painted black for the cladding at the top. I used doors and windows from other kits for the window and door openings. 

Here's what the finished building looks like in place on the layout. 

Here's an overall shot of Hymopak. The team track spur is in the foreground.

Here's a track-level shot. I built the small loading dock out of styrene. The doors, windows and hand railings were left over from the Paper Mill kit, which was kit bashed into Korex. 

The spur can hold three plastic-pellet hoppers. 

Here are the storage silos, made from the Walthers plastic pellet silos kit. I made the sign with a photo I took of the prototype ... then printed it out on decal paper and stuck it to the silos. The building and silos still need weathering. 

Another track-level shot. The vertical piping was made from sprues from a kit. They add some detail but here's a secret: they're really there to hide the seams between the brick sheets!

Now I realize that building doesn't capture many of the details and dimensions of the prototype. The real Hymopak is taller, less of a pure rectangle, has more details, nooks and crannies. I just don't have time to create a model that is that detailed. Because I'm always pressed for modelling time, I have to take a bit of a 'good enough' approach and move on to the next thing. I can always replace it with a more detailed building down the road but for now, there are just too many bare spots on my layout to linger too long on any one industry. 

Despite this, I still plan to:

• Weather the building and silos.
• Enhance the windows, possibly using photos of real factory windows.
• Ballast and weather the track (I need to cover that white styrene ramp below the track). 
• Add some safety signs, boxes, maybe a forklift, figures, etc. to add "life" to the structure and make it look busy. It's funny how just placing the truck near the building for these photos helped improve the look.

For now, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

Plastics industry: a great addition to any modern layout

I would encourage anyone with a modern layout to consider a plastics facility like this.

I was interested to see that just today, John Longhurst, who writes the excellent CP Rail & Minnesota Subdivision blog, wrote about a somewhat similar industry in Mississauga (which is just west of Toronto). The industry is called Katoen Natie and it also takes plastic hoppers. You can read John's post about it here. 

I've visited this industry myself. Often there is a large boxcar spotted on the spur among the covered hoppers (though there wasn't one there the day John visited).

Modelling this industry (or one like it) would require a similar, simple approach. A building flat (though of steel walls, not brick) and a few storage tanks and you're essentially done.

I now have two plastics facilities on my layout (Korex and Hymopak) and I could have had three. On the Area H spur there's also Polytainers, which takes pellet hoppers and turns them into plastic containers, like the kind that ice cream and yogurt comes in. Again, modelling that would be as simple as a brick building flat with some silos, like the kind in the Walthers Plastic Pellet hoppers kit. I've never seen this industry without two hoppers on its spur.

Some may say these simple industries are not as "eye-catching" as a sawmill, oil refinery or coal mine. Maybe not. But to me they say "modern suburban industry" which is what my layout models. 

Other layout additions

Rocking the hill

I added puffball trees and some rock castings to the area near the creek. I didn't like the look of the rolling hill  so I cut out some of the foam and added the castings and foliage. 

I've managed to squeeze in a few other additions. Here I've added a rock face behind the creek. Though there isn't a prototype for this on the area I model, I wanted to try out making and painting plaster rocks. I think they turned out OK. I also added some puffball trees to the top of the hill (and still have to add more). 

Before I added the rocks, the hill just seemed too bland. I think this adds some much-needed visual interest. I plan on adding a photo backdrop with a skyline here to enhance the scene's depth.

GMTX 125 is now in service. Adding all the little detailed parts nearly killed me. I don't think this is the kind of modelling I'm best at (or enjoy most).

GMTX 125

For reasons I can't explain, I wanted a leased locomotive on my layout. GATX 102 started life as an undecorated Athearn SW1500. I painted it, added decals and details. I honestly struggled with getting some of the details on this model. Some did not survive my hammer hands. I may go back and fix these problems later. I'm not sure I would attempt a project like this again. The upside is the loco doesn't look too bad and is a good runner. It was DCC ready so I just had to lift the shell, pull out the jumper and plug in a Digitrax decoder. The ease of this has convinced me that I'm only buying DCC-ready locos from now on!

Here's a prototype shot I was working from. Another problem? I didn't get the colour close to correct. 

That's it for now. As always I welcome your comments. 

Late January layout update

Basic level of ground cover is down here with many areas still needing ballast. I will go over all this ground cover again and fine-tune things. 

Greetings,

It's been a while since I've posted an update but I've been managing to get some work in on the layout. I've been doing a lot of ballasting, adding a few buildings and fixing some electric problems than have cropped up though regular running. I've also had to sort out problems with one pesky locomotive, the details of that problem I'll explain in another post.

New warehouse background building

This is a Walthers warehouse kit I tuned into a background structure. It's the longest spur on the layout. I may add tanks on the left side to make it more of a manufacturing plant that also takes plastic pellets as a way to add to the operating potential of this industry

Above you can see a new background building. This is a Walthers Lakeville Warehouse kit turned into a background building. It came together quite well. I'm not sure about the colour but I've still got to weather it down. There are many rail-served warehouses like this in the west Toronto area that I model. I mainly wanted a destination for boxcars because other than this industry, only the team track (see below) will take boxcars.

I've got to add roof details and a few other bits yet.

Quonset hut/maintenance area.

This little space will be a maintenance area. The quonset hut right next to the Lambton Yard office is similar to one on the prototype. 

This Quonset hut sits just to the left of the Lambton Yard office. It matches one on the prototype. I also stained a few wood pieces to represent tie piles. I plan to add extra rails, barrels, maintenance vehicles, dumpsters, etc. here.

Team track/transloading area

This is the team track. The pavement needs some weathering. This spur will take any kind of rolling stock. 

Here you see the team track area. The pavement is plaster stained with grey acrylic paint. It needs some weathering to make the colour less monochrome and a bit more dirty. Here I will add some containers, forklifts, loading docks, trucks and a modern prefab steel office/warehouse. 

Hymopak

The plywood block at the back will become Hymopak, which is a plastics plant that makes shopping bags.

I'm going to write a full post about this industry in the future but that plywood block at the back corner will be Hymopak, a large plastics company that makes take-home shopping bags, like the kind you get after buying stuff at Home Depot. 

The prototype is a large brick building (with black corrugated steel trim) that takes plastic pellet hoppers. I've got a Walthers plastic pellet transfer station kit that I'm going to use for tanks here. I've also got some brick sheets to laminate to the wood.


Below is a bing screen shot image of Hymopak. I will be modelling one wall and four of the white tanks.

A Bing maps aerial shot of Hymopak on Medulla Avenue in Etobicoke (West Toronto). This large industry takes rail delivery of plastic pellets (seen at the right) and turns them into shopping bags, like the kind you get at Home Depot. 

Two final wide shots

Here's an overall view from near the window looking to the left. 

Here's another overall view. looking to the left. The LaFarge cement silos will go in the back corner. 

This work is all happening on one leg of the peninsula. The other side still has plenty of exposed pink foam board. 

My goal is to at least paint out all the pink before the end of winter. 

Sorry it took so long to post an update!

September Layout update

All of this still needs work, but here are the beginnings of the underpass beneath the tracks at Runnymede.

Greetings everyone. As I said in an earlier post, I've not worked on the layout too much over the summer. 

I did manage to paint the track, get some scenery done and get the framework started on the underpass at Runnymede Road. I've also started on the parking lot where the Lambton yard office is. 

I was dithering about what colour of materials to use, where to start etc. I found that between magazines and online material I was reading more about model railroading that actually doing any of it!

I won't go into a blow-by-blow description of how I did everything to get the layout to this point. Here's the basics:

The start of the scenery and access road. The cardboard shimming the track will be covered with ballast. 

• Scenery: I draped plaster gauze over balled up plastic bags to form the hills on either side of the underpass. I then pulled the bags out after everything was dry. I painted the scenery brown with a cheap acrylic paint and used ground foam for the grass. The gravel road is a mix of four different ballast colours (two greys, a brown and a black). There's still plenty more layers of scenery material to apply here (grass tufts, foliage clusters, etc. etc.)

• Parking lot: This is done pretty much exactly how Lance Mindheim describes here. It's Rustoleum grey primer paint, followed with an India ink wash applied with an airbrush. The road paint (parking lots lines) also follows the Mindheim technique described here in the Aug. 24 post on his blog. I'm going to redo the road markings on the street that runs along the underpass. I  made a failed attempt at that before reading Mindheim's technique. 
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• Track paint: here I used Brown camo paint from Home Depot. Looks oK but it's a bit too uniform, I want to go back and weather up the rail and certain ties. 

What's next?

I've got to finish the scenery here in the yard, including the ballast, which I'm not looking forward to. It's a tedious job. I'm also going to a train show in a few weeks that will give me a chance to pick up some of the background structures I need. I'm also preparing some  rail photos I shot over the summer around the area to laminate buildings and use for the photo backdrop.

Sorry this isn't more detailed. I will include more pics in my next post. 

Here's a look to the right of the bridge. The cardboard rectangle in the background is a mockup of where a warehouse building will go for the spur that runs there. 

March Layout update

The fascia has given my in-progess layout a more finished look. The paint cost $5 from the return shelf at my local paint store.

With this winter refusing to fully retreat, I’ve managed to get quite a bit done on the layout this March. Here’s an update.

Fascia (partially) installed

Fascia installed. 

I must have read it dozens of times: layout builders impressed by what a big step forward the layout takes visually after the fascia is installed.

After humming and hawing (mostly hawing) about the depth and colour of the fascia, I let finances decide. I found a half gallon of forest green paint in the discount shelf at the local paint store and got started. As an aside, this a great money-saving tip for model railroaders: You rarely need to spend top dollar on of-the-shelf paint! Most paint stores have a shelf of paint that people have bought, taken home, decided that they hated and returned. It’s often heavily discounted (but almost never returnable). The paint I bought was a very high-quality Benjamin Moore interior latex with a flat finish. The price: $5.

Anyway the fascia was straightforward to install. I ran out of hardboard to do the peninsula, but I want to shore up the shelving under that section anyway, so it makes more sense to wait until that work is done. It does give the layout more of a finished look, less like a construction site.

Homemade throttle pockets

Now there's no excuse for leaving the throttle on the layout! Just realized the red light on the plug-in panel looks like Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Should I be worried it's going to turn on me unexpectedly?

As scenery progresses, there’s less and less empty layout space to set the throttles, but it’s time I start breaking that bad habit anyway! Commercial throttle pockets are $10 a piece and Al Mayo has a YouTube video where he makes his own using 50 cent electrical boxes. Neither option appealed to me so I made my own from bits from my scrap box. They work fine and look OK. I can always replace them down the road if I want something more elegant.

Here's the throttle pocket for the NCE PowerCab.

Without the cab in it, the throttle cradle looks like a La-Z-Boy for my PowerCab.

Area – H scenery/roads started 

Roads/scenery started near Korex. With each passing week, the pink insulation board loses precious ground.

I’ve tried two ways to do the roads: drywall compound and styrene. I have to say I prefer styrene because the process is cleaner and the results are easier to control. I generally am following the road technique outlined here by Lance Mindheim: A spray with Rustoleum primer, which I will follow with an India ink wash. I’m also hitting the roads with washes of lighter greys using my airbrush so they’re not too uniform in colour. I may also try using decals of road details like manhole covers and storm grates. So far I’m happy with how the road surface looks. I’ve poured Hydrocal between the tracks at the crossings. I’ll sand it down and clean out the rail flanges with my Dremel tool and paint it.

Pond scene progress

I’ve got mixed feelings about how this scene is turning out. Here’s the steps:

• Mark and carve out stream bed from foam layout base.
• Cut and glue foam piece beneath layout to provide a bottom for the stream.
• Filled stream bed with Hyrocal to seal it (this worked well).
• Painted the stream bed black in the middle with airbrush sprays of tan at the edges to simulate depth. Here I followed the technique David Popp outlines in his book Building A Model Railroad Step by Step.
• Poured the stream using Woodland Scenics Realistic Water.
• Added ripple effects using Woodlanc Scenics Water Effects

So how does it look?

The water looks ok like this, when the camera lens is dropped to the layout level. Looking down from a standing position, the water looks  almost invisible. I've added ripple effects since this shot was taken.

Look at this photo and it doesn’t look too bad. It looks like water, though I wish I’d put more rocks inside the water. But standing up and looking down at it, the water is invisible. I think this is a layout height problem (in other words the layout is too low).

If I did it again I’d add more pours for greater depth and put more material inside the stream.

Runnymede Road underpass

I'm staring work now on the underpass at Runnymede, with a print out photo showing the prototype. The bridge parts will be Hydrocal castings.

I’ve pulled out the wood abutments and I’m pouring Hydrocal ones to take their place. I just can’t make the wood look like concrete! I’ve also got the styrene painted for the road surface. I will provide an update on this later!

This spur in the corner will one day serve Polytainers. For now, it serves a distributor of model railroad scenery supplies, mainly ground foam.

(Mini) layout update

Some progress to report

Greetings, the snow is starting to fall so it's officially model railroad season. I've managed to make some small progress on my layout in the past few weeks. Here's a summary.

Tweaking the track plan

I felt the layout would operate better if there was some "off layout" staging on the peninsula. That way a train could start on the workbench (east) staging move through the layout and exchange cars, then head to the staging track on the peninsula (west staging). I have more rolling stock than can operate on the layout at once (anyone else?) so I want to put a drawer under the layout beneath the staging tracks so cars can come on and off the layout. 

The trackplan on the home page does not yet reflect these changes, but what I also wanted to do was divide the peninsula with a view block, separating Korex from a two-track staging yard. But to do this I really needed to lengthen and widen the end of the peninsula. Which brings me to the point below: 

Move to extend, widen the peninsula

The move to extend and widen the peninsula took some re-jigging of the benchwork.  But I had the space in the aisle, so I figured I should take it. The staging tracks will be on the right. There will be a scene divider (backdrop) about six inches in from that right edge. Korex will go on the other side. 

Here it is with the foam added. 

I decided that the original peninsula width (21 inches) was too narrow to accomplish what I wanted. So I extended it two feet in length and widened it about eight inches at the end and tapered that back to the 21 inches. About six inches of the peninsula will be a two-track staging yard and Korex will be on the other side of the scene divider. 

I want to try and model Korex true to its size, but as a background building. The prototype has four siding tracks and at any given time there can be up to a dozen hoppers at this industry, including the off spots. I may have to crunch that down a bit, but I don't like having all small industries, even on a small layout. Here's an aerial shot of Korex:

This is an aerial of Korex from the west. You can see it's a large industry that takes plenty of plastic pellet hoppers. 

Here's a shot from the ground level where the tracks diverge:

This is Korex from ground level. This is where the tracks diverge: off-spots on the left, unloading tracks on the right. The fact that it's a big, busy customer makes modelling this industry appealing to me. 

Adding a hill to the "back turn"

The hill begins to take shape. I'm considering adding a drainage ditch between the track and facia you see at the left. 

While I was waiting to get some lumber to re-jig the peninsula, I decided to fill the area between the back turn of the "U" and the backdrop. I used left-over foam insulation and covered it with Sculptamold. 

This is the start of the hill. The south wall is to the left, the west wall is straight ahead. 

This is the first time I've done any scenery but I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. I found the Sculptamold a bit dry at the suggested mixing instructions, so I added more water. Upside: it spread more smoothly. Downside: it took forever to dry. Next time I'll stick to instructions. I think it's supposed to be that dry.

This is the hill after the Sculptamold was applied. The camera light meter wasn't set right here so it's hard to see the detail in the white Sculptamold here. 

I worked left to right and the first effort was much lumpier than where I finished up on the right side. Next step is to cover it with some tan latex paint and ground turf, foam, etc. I'd like to add a shallow drainage ditch between the track and facia in this area. 

What's next?

Here's a brief list of what I hope to accomplish in the next few weeks.

• Build the scenic divider for the peninsula.
• Figure out where the buildings and road will go on the left (non staging) side of the peninsula. 
• lay track on the peninsula, wire and test it. This will mean the entire layout (aside from the east staging) is operation.
• Cut and contour the shape of the drainage ditch.
• Get the facia attached to the layout. 
• I may also paint the foam all over the layout, with plans to scenic it later. The pink is driving me nuts!

I love to get comments. Come back for future posts, in which i will introduce the layout's motive power.  

Happy modelling.

Blue sky ahead! Backdrop installed

Goodbye tool rack; hello blue backdrop. 

Layout progress is inching along. Summer is here and I've always considered model railroading more of a winter pursuit. Still, I managed to get the backdrop installed last week, so no more brick wall/tool rack backdrop.

I was worried the colour was too light but the paint store guy convinced me it would be blue enough, and I'm glad he did. In these photos it looks almost too white, but in real life, it more closely resembles sky.

Here's two more pics.

Here's one looking in the other direction.

Here's one looking toward south west corner of the layout. Throttle pockets would be a good idea about now!
I realize that I could have curved the hardboard here for a more eye-pleasing corner, put I found it would have made it too hard to put a building there. 

Next will be to finish getting the track down and wired. I'm pondering widening the peninsula (not pictured) to make way for a larger industry.  Future plans also include uploading a short video to show the trains running. Happy with the way everything is operating during the test runs so far. Really enjoying DCC.

After that, the plan is to add the staging yard behind the workbench and fascia. 

Until next time...

June layout update

This is the Lambton Yard area, where the railroad has expropriated a former leg of my workbench. I'm going to have to do something with that tool rack. It will give me a lot more yard space though. 

It’s been a long time since the last layout update but despite this, I’ve managed to do a fair bit of work. Here’s a quick breakdown.

Layout extension

Hungry for more layout space, I’ve added about six feet to the layout by placing it on top what was one leg of my L-shaped workbench. I decided I’d be using the layout more than the workbench, plus I’ve got sawhorses a Black and Decker Workmate and other options if I need more workspace for projects. In order to make way for the extension, I placed some 2x4s on the former workbench, turned them on their ends and screwed them to the plywood. Then I laid the foam over the 2x4 sleepers, glued that down and voila, instant layout extension. The problem now is that the peg board holding the tools will likely have to be moved to make way for a backdrop and to prevent hammers, chisels, adjustable wrenches, etc. from raining down on my locos and rolling stock.

Wiring

I followed NCE’s wiring recommendations: a 14-gauge buss under the layout and 18-gauge feeders to each (almost) each piece of track. At first I used those suitcase connectors to attach the feeders to the buss, but I found them too finicky to use. I’m pretty adept at soldering, so I just stripped ½ of insulation off the buss, then about ¾ of insulation off the feeder. Then I wrapped the feeder around the bare spot on the buss a few times, soldered it and covered the connection with electrical tape. It’s hard to get a better electrical connection than that. Over the yard, where I needed lots of feeders in one area of the layout, I brought a feeder line from the buss to a terminal block, then made little loops connecting the points so all screws on the block were powered by the same circuit. Then if I needed to connect a feeder in the area, I just ran it back to that terminal block. Cuts down on the soldering a bit.

Many suggest running feeder to every piece of track. The thinking is that this way you’re not relying on rail joiners to carry power from one section of rail to the other. I laid a bunch of track a long way from the nearest feeder and ran trains, just to see if it would work (the nearest feeder was four feet and many rail sections away) it ran no problem, I couldn’t make any of my locos stall even at slow speeds. But I still followed best practices and added feeders to most (though not every) piece of rail. The layout runs great, I’ve yet to have a stall. Also I performed the “quarter test” on every track and the NCE PowerCab short circuit detector shut down the layout each time, as it’s supposed to do. When wiring, I always test as I go, running trains over the spot after making every connection to ensure I’ve not wired a short, which would become tough to pinpoint later on.

At first I had trouble, and was melting ties when attaching the feeders to the rails but that improved when I switched to a 40-watt soldering iron with very thin solder. I also place a piece of metal over the rails to act as a heat sink, which helps keep the ties in a solid state.

This is the subway that goes under the tracks at Runnymede Road.

Here's the prototype shot of the Runnymede Road subway. I still have plenty of work to do!.

Track laying

I have great admiration for those who handlay their track, and it’s something I may attempt one day. For now, I just want to get trains running quickly so I’m using Atlas and Peco Code 100 track and turnouts, which are widely available. I laid the track right on the lines sharpied onto the foam. I found a few dabs of glue under the flextrack gives enough adhesion while leaving open the possibility of pulling up and reusing the track down the line. I’ve laid much of the track in the Lambton yard area and the spurs around it. I’ve also started the extension that leads to the staging yard. I’ve not yet laid the track around the peninsula (on the south end of the layout).

There are those who would take more time with all of these steps while using more prototypical track, but I have very limited available modeling time and I wanted to get trains running right away.

I’m enjoying picking up and setting off cars on my small layout … even though the track is running over pink foam and there’s no backdrop or buildings.

Looking from Lamton Yard over toward the West wall of the basement.

Close up of some of my motive power, anxious to get to work!

So what’s next:

1. Finish track laying. I’ve still got to do the spurs that lead to Korex.
2. Adding the backdrop. This will involve removing the tool rack. Not looking forward to that. I’m thinking of using hardboard painted a light sky blue at a height of 24 inches.
3.  Fascia. I love the finished look the fascia gives the layout and so I’m going to add a hardboard fascia soon.