Pace Chemical Part 2 - The Westmoreland Turn

The main structure located along the backdrop behind the Southern Kentucky Transfer.  The administrative/office building has been moved from the north side of the building on the prototype to the east side on the model.  Again, this portion of the complex was built using left over parts from a previous kit bash.

Here we are a little further along. The covered loading dock is finished as are two of the tank car loading/unloading racks.  The rack in the left foreground is for loading trucks.  The roof hasn't been installed yet.  Both it, upper portion of the warehouse walls and the doors and windows will be painted a contrasting color.  Two more tank car car loading/unloading racks need to be added plus a bunch of vertical storage tanks.

I sprayed the doors, window frames and upper section of the wall panels along with the roof of the truck loading rack a dark red. 

Referring bank to my last blog, the prototype pictures illustrates a variety of vertical tank types and sizes spread around the facility.  Unfortunately, suitable HO scale tanks are relatively hard to find.  The following 4 tanks were made from the silos included with the Walthers Magic Pan Bakery kit.  They are OK at best.  I modified them by cutting off a lower portion of the silo to eliminate a door and painted them with semi-gloss paint to make them look more metal like.  Blue painter's tape was used as a guide and the cuts were made with a razor saw.  I have four more to assemble so I need to get those built and figure out where they are going to be located before I can add piping, ladders, railing and other details.

Before I can go much further with Pace Chemical, I need more tanks.  Walthers makes a couple of kits that include a bunch of tanks.  I assembled a few, figured out which ones I could use and then order more kits. 

I'm kind of at a stand-still when it comes to Pace Chemicals. I have a bunch of kits for tanks on order but they haven't all arrived.  So, I thought I would include this overall picture of the South Kentucky Transfer, Pace Chemical and the GM plant in the background.

 

The L&N Servicing Facility at Plum Springs

 

I've also did a little more work on the  L&N servicing facility.  I finally found some additional Micro Engineering Code 70 turnouts on ebay so a new spur for unloading diesel fuel and locomotive sand was added. The spur also has room to store a couple of locomotives.

The Westmoreland Turn

 

The Westmoreland Turn is a daily except Sunday local that originates out of Preston Miller Yard in Bowling Green and makes a turn to Westmoreland.  Primary traffic consists of inbound loads a aggregates, LPG and building material products.  There is also a local team track. Outbound loads consist of Portland Cement.

 

Power for today's turn consists of a FP-7A and Southern's only Alco RS-11. 

 

 On the way out of town, the turn passes by the Central Kentucky Grain elevator.

 

 

FP-7A #6132 is a recent Walthers Proto release. By the mid1970's many of the Southern's FP-7's were out of work and many were relegated to secondary freight assignments.  The #6132 is equipped with a Tsunami2, TCS KA1 Keep Alive and a TCS 1740 speaker and enclosure.  The train is eastbound between Tunnel 1 and State Line.

                                                                                 

 

Redi Gas is located on the spur that extends off to the left.  It gets switched first.  Operating rules require a couple of cars between the locomotives and the loaded LPG car.  Otherwise, the switch crew at Preston Miller would have placed the car directly behind the locomotives.  Downtown Westmoreland is in the background.

CEMEX is the largest shipper in Westmoreland. But before switching out the plant, the Turn will set out the Southern Pacific box car on the team track.  Several of the structure in this view are actually part of the backdrop.  The effect is pretty convincing.

Having dropped off the SP box car, the power backs out of  the team track.  RS-11 #11 was originally purchased for Southern subsidiary Carolina & Northwestern.  While Southern and it's subsidiaries owned a sizable fleet of early Alco road switchers, the #11 purchased in 1956, was the only 251 powered Alco the Southern bought.  The #11 is a factory decorated Atlas model.  It is also equipped with a Tsunami2, TCS KA1 Keep Alive, and a TCS 1740 speaker and enclosure.  Interestingly enough, Atlas also did a Carolina & Northwestern version of this locomotive.

The #11 has backed down to the east end of Westmoreland to access the CEMEX plant.  The company houses and maintenance yard are right outside Tunnel 2.

Outbound cement cars.

Having finished work in Westmoreland, the Turn heads back to Preston Miller.  After crossing the Cumberland River, the turn is about to pass through the speed limit signs at State Line.  The aggregate car are recent additions to the freight car roster.  The 2 bay hoppers, from Accurail, replaced a fleet of 40' Ortner cars.

 

Caboose X586 brings up the rear of the Turn.  This caboose was originally factory decorated by Walthers for Western Pacific.  I scraped and sanded off the Western Pacific lettering and redid it for Southern.  I little weathering covered up the not so perfect redo for a reasonable representation of a Southern bay window caboose.  The ABS signals here are from Tomar but new Atlas/BLMA replacements are on hand.

As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com

L&N #5600 - Pace Chemical Part 1 - Moving the GM Plant - And more

L&N #5600

 

I have always had a fondness for Alco power, especially the C-430.  Alco only built 16 examples of the C-430 including 3 demos which ultimately ended up on the L&N.  An L&N version finally showed up on ebay and I decided to buy it regardless of cost.  Here it is, fresh out of the box, at Preston Miller, on the head end of a trackage rights train bound for the L&N at Tullahoma, TN.

 

.

A Bit More Scenery

 

During my recovery, from the accident, I managed to ballast most of the Preston Miller Yard and add a bit more scenery along the backdrop between Reinhart Foods and the freight house.

 

 

Pace Chemical - Part One

 

Over the last couple of months, several changes have been made to the lower level of the layout that freed up some space for additional industrial development.  During this process, I remembered a few pictures I took of the Univar facility in Kent WA.  Univar receives various chemicals, primarily in tank cars, and distributes them in the form of acids, essential chemicals and additives, oleochemicals, oxides, polymers and resins, silicones, solvents and process aids in both liquid and granular forms.  Most of these products are shipped to local end users by truck.  As a result, I decided that a similar complex located along the Madisonville Sub would make a great destination for tank cars and possibly a box car or two.

 

The actual location is on the L&N Bowling Green/Smith Grove portion of the layout behind the Southern Kentucky Transfer.  I have about two inches to work with for the main building, behind the tank cars in the following photo, between the far track and the backdrop.

 

Getting access to the Kent, WA complex for additional photographs is just about impossible.  Instead, I turned to the internet. Here is an overhead view looking north.  The BNSF main line is off  to the west (left) running south to north.  The spur curves around a 90 degree curve from the south, passes through a empty lot, a gate, and into the complex.  There is a loading rack for tanker trucks just to the east (right) of the main structure.  The large building is pretty typical of the other "tilt up" style concrete structure in the area.  Due to the lack of skylights, vents, fans, ducts, or air conditioning units on the roof the building appears to be nothing more than a warehouse/distribution center.  There is an attached office building on the north side of the main structure.

 

When I originally explored the site, there appeared to be pipes running the length of the building.  I thought the tank cars were unloaded along the entire length of the structure.  From my vantage point, near the single tree in the center left foreground of the photograph, I couldn't see the yellow loading/unloading racks.  It was only after I studied the aerial photographs that I realized that the six cars on the left along with another five or six cars further down the spur to the west were off spot waiting for the cars on the right to be unloaded and moved.

 

There are four loading/unloading racks.  Three of them show up in this photo, again looking south to north; one on the near track, two on the far track.  The track arrangement is obviously a time consuming challenge for the local switch crews.

 

The fourth loading/unloading rack, viewed from the east, is located at the end of the spur.

The Model

Due to space limitations, I am only modeling the area on the south side of complex (below the red line).  I also had to flip the structure horizontally and have the complex accessed from the east (right).  Three Walthers kits (933) can be used for a majority of the complex.  The tilt up warehouse will require a rather simple kit bash; the loading racks can probably be used as is.  The storage tanks, from a number of sources, along with a Pikestuff kit bash will also be required.

Aerial photograph flipped horizontally:

The main or east end of the warehouse building was assembled using parts from the Walthers Modern Concrete Warehouse.  Assembly of the main portion was pretty simple.. The modules can be used to adjust the overall length, depth, and door or window types and location.  The only modifications I made were to the side walls.  I cut the width of the two corner panels down to 2" and glued them in place.  The building has no back wall or roof at this point.

Assembling the west end of the building was a little more complex.  The prototype has a covered, open sided, loading dock that encompasses most if not all of of one end.  Since I only had two inches of depth to work, my model couldn't be quite so open.  After given it a evening of thought, I decided to cut a portion of the side wall in half, horizontally, recess the lower portion, and add a loading dock.  The gray panels were left over from a previous kit bash.  Four end panels were cut down and glued back to back to create the end sections.

Here is a picture of the back side.  It illustrates how the modular side panels are held together.  I normally add styrene strips at the corners to increase strength and stability.

Other Projects - The General Motors Assembly Plant

Over the last month, other changes have taken place on the Madisonville Sub.  I decided switching industries was a lot more rewarding than having a bunch of trains running across the subdivision from staging yard to staging yard.  The Bowling Green General Motor Assembly plant moved around the corner and now occupies what had been the visible portion of the lower staging tracks.  The small L&N locomotive servicing facility also made the move.  Pace Chemical will be just out of view on the left.  Moving the GM plant freed up about 10 feet along the north wall of the room for another new project.

 

The Accident(s)

 

A number of people have called or emailed to ask how my recovery is going.  After about a month, I am back to about 80%.  The doctors told me a full recovery will take about 2 months.

 

 

To summarize, I managed to fall off my 1947 8N Ford tractor while trying to avoid a large stump.  I struck the stump with the right front tire, the tractor tipped to the left, my foot slipped off the clutch and I fell beneath the left rear tire.  Luckily, I managed to turn off the tractor as I fell.  While the tractor didn't go over my knee replacement, it did go over my ankle and come to rest below my knee on the inner side of my left calf... "ouch".  Luckily, my daughter was visiting and she new how to drive the tractor.  She started it up and managed to free me by backing off my calf and over my ankle for the second time before the medics arrived and took me to the hospital.  Luckily, nothing was broken but I did suffer extensive deep bone and soft tissue bruising, scrapes and abrasions.

 

A week after the "Predator" ran over my leg, my weenie dog Gertrude managed to slip a disk while chasing after Cooper (Pam's cat).  Six hours later she had back surgery to the tune of $8,000.00 and my $200 a month train budget was wiped out for the next 5 years!  After 3 weeks her recovery is going well but she will be confined to a 2'x3' crate for most of the time over the next 5 weeks.  I guess both of of will get back up to speed about the same time.

Fortunately, Pam agreed the cost of Gert's surgery shouldn't have to come out of my train budget.

As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome

sdepolo@outlook.com