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
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