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