Contruction Update #5 - The Helix, Bridge, CEMEX, Hills & more hoppers

Stay Home, Stay Safe & Social Distancing

 

The Helix

 

While the coronavirus lock down has effected millions of people, its hadn't really impacted progress on the MBG&C until last week.  Once all of sub-roadbed and cork roadbed were in place on the upper deck, with the exception of the staging yard and reverse loop,  I decided it was time to work my way down or better said up the helix.  It ain't all that pretty, but the transitions are smooth, the grade has worked out to be a near perfect 2.2% with little or no variation and  each loop includes provisions for expansion and contraction.

 

Unfortunately, I underestimated the amount of plywood needed and ran out about two thirds of the way up.  On to another project.

The Bridge over "No Name"creek

The bridge over "No Name" creek was built with Walthers bridge kits.  They include a 90' deck bridge, a 50' deck bridge and a pile trestle.  The piers and abutmunts are also Walthers kits.  Building the deck bridges was pretty straight forward.  Each of them took less than hour to put tegether.  I had to measure and cut down the wood pilings so that portion of the crossing took several hours.  The most difficult part of the process was cutting down the piers and the abutment.  Everything went according to plan until I placed the 50' span on the abutments; it was warped.  I tied straightening it out by heating it in boiling water and then clamping it between two blocks of hardwood; it didn't work.  It came out of the clamp just as it had gone in... warped.  Then I tried applying liberal amounts of Tamiya extra thin plastic cement to most of the joints.  Luckily, all of the glue joints are on the inside of the girders.  After a couple of hours clamped between the hardwood blocks, warping was no longer a problem.

Here is an overall view of the scene.  It is about 20' long.  I have the backdrops for this entire scene.  One of these days I'll get up the courage to wrap the next one around that corner.

The CEMEX redi-mix plant at Westmoreland

 

Work was also started on the CEMEX redi-mix plant at Westmoreland.  Again, a Walthers kit was used as a starting point.  In addition, my stash of  kits provided some large silos and conveyors from an old gravel plant kit imported from Revell.  A kit from Kibri, will provide some additional storage for cement and fly ash.  Another backdrop, ordered from Trackside Scenery will be used here at Westmoreland.  I pasted together three low resolution scans and taped each of them to the backdrop to get an idea on how they would look.  I decided on the one shown in the photo and ordered it and another from Joey and Trackside.

More coal hoppers

Like the hoppers shown in Update #4, these 70 ton coal hoppers were purchased from the Southern (Bowser).  Since these pictures were taken, the cars have been lettered and had metal wheel sets and Kadee #58 couplers installed.  Five of these were added to the fleet..

 

Not sure who made this car but it got the same treatment.

 

Hills Pet Nutrition (Maybe)

 

I don't think I have previously posted a picture of Hill's Pet Nutrition.   Getting a structure to this point doesn't take a lot of time and can easily be moved back to the work bench for details, paint and weathering.  Hills is another combination of four kit-bashed Walthers kits and a few scratch built components.  Its about seven feet long and sits next to the Bowling Green GM assembly plant shown in an earlier post.