Construction Update #37 - Downtown Bowling Green, Hill's Pet Nutrition and Car Cards & Waybills

The Depot at Bowling Green

 

Moving the GM plant from the north to the west wall of the room opened up a lot of space for new development.  The old spurs for the plant were removed and plans are under way for the development of a scene representing downtown Bowling Green.  The scene will feature a depot in the foreground and a commercial district with some street running in the background.  A track or two will also be added in the space between the backdrop, behind the GM plant, and garage door for staging (Evansville, IN).

 

Downtown Bowling Green, Kentucky.  It looks like the Walthers series of "Merchant's Row" kits were based on downtown Bowling Green.

While I am not totally satisfied with the Walthers "City Station" kit (933-2904), it is typical of stations found in a lot of mid sized cities.  I painted most of the parts while they were still on the sprues and built the kit in sub-assemblies.  In hindsight, I think that was a mistake.  If I were to build this kit again, I would assemble most if not all of the brick sections, paint the basic structure, and then add the details.

 

 

I found the roof to be a major problem.  Without sealing up the interior, it is almost impossible to hide the seams between roof sections.  Since interior detailing with all windows is a option, I decided to live with the seams for the time being.   

The one significant change I did make was to substitute a larger asphalt platform for the brick version included with the kit.  I think the asphalt version is more typical of the 1970's  when railroads were cutting costs where possible and deferring maintenance.

My friend Kurt Boyd gave me building flats to try out behind the depot.  Those along with several photos from Thurmond, WV make up the "test" commercial district behind the depot.  The deepest flat is about 3/4" thick.  Several are mounted on 1/4" foam core while the photos from Thurmond are just taped directly onto the backdrop.  They are pretty effective especially in photographes.

 

Hill's Pet Nutrition

 

Hill's Pet Nutrition is to the east (bout 5 feet to the right) of the depot/downtown Bowling Green scene.  I built the original Hill's Pet Nutrition from a combination of Walthers kits.  At the time, it was just a "big" structure built using kits, partially built kits, and a few scratch built parts I had on hand that would serve as a destination for covered hoppers.  It's a nice structure but it looks nothing like the prototype.  The goal here was to replace it with a structure that looks and feels a bit more like the prototype.

 

 

During the Spring of 2019, Pam and I took a trip that included a couple of days in Bowling Green.  During that trip, I found the prototype and took a couple of photos.  Unfortunately, due to the lack of access, it's impossible to photograph the structure from the back or track side.  Fortunately, Google came to the rescue...  And, note that the prototype looks nothing like the current model.

Hill's currently makes 26 different dry foods for dogs.  They include combinations of chicken and/or lamb, brewers rice, meat concentrate, peas, barley, sorghum, wet or dry shell free eggs, chicken fat, and other nutritional supplements.  The plant receives raw materials in both covered hoppers and tank cars.  When these pictures were taken, there were two covered hoppers spotted next to the plant along with an additional three covered hoppers and three tank cars off spot on the lead.  

I assume the covered hoppers contain one or more of the grains mentioned above; not sure about the tank cars but here is where they appear to be unloaded.  There's no indication that the plant currently ships by rail but I have included track side roll up doors for that purpose.

Well, so much for the prototype.  Doing the research was interesting and provided a little insight in to how dog food is made but not much else when it comes to building a model that will fit in a 6" wide by 7' long space.  I'm not even sure when the plant was built.  I do know one thing for sure; our weenie dog Gertrude, who has almost fully recovered from back surgery, is now getting a lot of home cooked meals.

 

I'm not one for drawing up much of a plan.  I normally make a couple of sketches and start cutting.  I really like building structures from styrene so If I screw up, I just start over.

 

 

In this case I checked around to see what I had on hand.  I found several packages of Plastruct corrugated siding (#91509) and went to work.  If you have been following my blog, you already know that I usually start with a "core" made from styrene and go from there.  In this case, the core is made from Evergreen .080" sheet styrene and the trim is .080" by .125" styrene strip.  The doors are left overs from a Walthers modern warehouse kit.  I use Tamiya "Extra Thin" Cement for gluing styrene.

This is a large structure so it is being built in sections.  The first one, the warehouse section to the right is 41" long.  The second section, on the left is about 14" long and will but up against the existing elevator.  A third section, which will include all the tanks, sheds, etc will be on the opposite side of the elevator.

When you build a structure this long, out of styrene, bracing is a must.  The heavy strip running accross the top of the backside is .188"x.750" strip styrene.  It will also support the roof.  

As of 10/29, here's how it looks.

 

 

Here's that opening photo for a quick comparison.

 

  

Car Cards & Waybills

 

As some of you know, I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to computerize car forwarding on my layout.  I have tried two different programs and while they both work as advertised, I have drifted back to the old car card and waybill system I have used on previous layouts.  I find the car cards and waybills more flexible and better suited to the short casual operating sessions I prefer.  The use of car cards and waybills is well documented so I don't have much to offer in addition to what's already out there.

The car cards and double sided waybills were designed using Excel.  Each waybill has the following information for each destination.  There can be up to 4 destinations on each waybill.

• Consignee
• Location
• Routing
• Via
• Shipper
• Lading
  

Four car cards or eight waybills will fit on a standard sized 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper.  The car cards are printed on 110 LB Index and the way bills on 67 LB Bristol.  It should be noted that some home printers may not be able to print the 110 LB card stock.  I also found it was nearly impossible to get the double sided waybills lined up properly using the "print on both sides" function on my HP color inkjet printer.  After hours of trying, I ended up printing one side, flipping the paper over by hand, and printing the back side using the "print single sided" function.

 

The waybills are color coded for destination.  I learned this little trick during an operating session on Burr Stewart's HO Burlington Northern layout.  

 

 

For example, the yellow strip across the waybill shown below, indicates that the car will be interchanged with the Louisville & Nashville at the L&N's GEMCO Yard in Plum Springs, KY.  In this case, the yardmaster at Preston Miller has no need to be concerned with the actual consignee.  All the Preston Miller yardmaster is concerned about is getting the foreign road car on a transfer across town to the L&N before mid-night in order to avoid a per-deim charge.  

 

 

The green across the top of the waybill indicates that the respective car will be interchanged with the Central of Georgia/Southern and De Butts Yard in Chattanooga, TN.  If a waybill has a gray stripe across the top, then the Preston Miller yardmaster will have to take a closer look at the waybill.  Gray indicates a MBGC destination and the yardmaster will need to know the actual consignee so he can assign the car to the right train.

Car Cards and Waybills require bill boxes.  I made mine from .080" sheet styrene and .188" thick strip styrene.  An industry box has a minimum of 3 slots.  One for the industry (on spot), one for off spot cars, and one for outbound cars.  The one shown below is for Central Kentucky Grain in Bowling Green.  Eventually the bill box will be painted gray, to match CKG, and labelled.

As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome

sdepolo@theinsidegateway.com

Pace Chemical Part 3, Aggregate Cars and the GM Plant

Work continues on Pace Chemical.  The roof, windows, doors and other details have been added.  Still waiting for additional storage tanks ordered from Walthers. 

 

 

Years ago I came across the Western Pacific tracks that ran down the center of a street in Oakland, California.  Along this section of street running, there sat a local blocked by a tractor trailer backed up to a loading dock.  It took crew about 30 minutes to track down the driver and get the trailer moved.  I thought a similar arrangement on the Madisonville Sub would add some operating interest.

 

The concrete pad, shown in the photo below on the right, spans two tracks that service Pace Chemical.  It was made by cutting up some roof sections, from the Walthers Modern Warehouse kit, and gluing them directly to the O-Scale cork roadbed I used for the base of the Southern Kentucky Transfer.  The code 70 flex track in this area sits on N-Scale cork so the height of the pad turned out to be a few thousands of an inch below the rail head.  

 

 

Aggregate Cars

 

As mentioned in the last post, on the 1975 era Madisonville Sub older 55 ton hoppers have replaced the more modern era 40' Ortner aggregate cars.  The 55 ton cars were all built from factory decorated Accurail kits.  Kadee #58 scale couplers and metal wheel set replaced the originals.  Several of the cars were built by my 8 year old grandson Adam. The cars were weathered with a combination of paint and powdered pigments.

Between Southern and Central of  Georgia, I've come up with 8 factory decorated kits with different number. More will be added using decals available directly from Accurail.  For $4 Accurail will send you additional numbers printed on decal paper painted to match the factory decorated kits.  Each kit has a small form to include with payment.

 

Storage Tanks for Pace Chemical

After 2 weeks, the storage tank kits finally arrived from Walthers.  I assembled and painted these along with a few others, from my parts box, to make up the small tank farm next to the main structure.  

I normally give things a or two week before I settle on the final structure and/or location.  After a couple of days, the decision was made to change out the tall structure on the left.  Two of the spurs were shortened by 3" and the tall structure was replaced with a Pikestuff #5005 multi-purpose steel building. A few details have talso been added. (This tends to be an ongoing process with me.)

Here is an overall picture of Pace Chemical as of 9/30,  The main structure is 54" long and has 7 car spots on 3 tracks.  A industry like Pace Chemical would be perfect for a small shelf style switching layout as it is only 14" deep.
 

 

The General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant

 

As mentioned in the September 6th post, the GM plant was moved from the north wall to west wall of the room adjacent to Pace Chemical.  This picture was taken back in August when the assembly plant was first moved to it's current location.  At the time the east end of the west staging yard was being reconfigured in order to support the assembly plant.  This move effectively eliminated the west end staging tracks.

A hole was cut in the new section of backdrop in order to spot cars inside the plant.

 

 

The elimination of all that west end staging turned out to be a little short sided.  The far end of the GM plant was reconfigured by rearranging a couple of wall panels and adding a new roof section.  A loading dock was also added to the inside of the new section that can be detailed at some point in the future.

The track in the foreground will soon pass through the backdrop and into a shorter 8' long 2 track staging for the L&N and IC.

 

The need to pass through the backdrop, unseen, without blocking out the view of the GM plant was a bit of a challenge.  Adding to the complexity is the angle of  the backdrop.  I built several mock ups from styrene and some left over parts from previous kit bashing projects.  The first one was much to tall and overwhelmed the surrounding structures.  The height was cut down twice to a point the mock up just covered the opening from the normal viewing angle.

 

Here is the overall result.  It effectively blocks where the track passes through the backdrop but stands out like a "sore thumb" in the photos.  It looks better in real life and should improve dramatically once painted a a subtle coat of gray or beige.  Painting the backdrop will also help.

Just for fun, I made up a switch list and worked the current L&N Plum Springs and Smith Grove portion of the layout.  I took me an hour and forty-five minutes to sort out the cars in the small L&N/GEMCO yard, and work the Southern Kentucky Transfer, Pace Chemical & the GM assembly plant.  This job also requires taking a cut of interchange cars over to Preston Miller Yard which I didn't do.  Between Pace Chemical, with seven spots, the GM Plant with six spots and the Southern Kentucky Transfer, there are currently over 20 car spots on the L&N portion of the layout.

As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome

sdepolo@outllook.com