Hill's Pet Nutrition:
Work continues on Hill's Pet Nutrition. On the west end of the plant are numerous small structures, tanks, pipes, and who knows what else. The first building, west of the elevator is a small structure and a loading dock. The loading dock on the prototype had eight vertical tanks along with a tall rectangular "something". Here's my version; the tanks are just stand ins from my parts box; the dock came from left over Pikestuff parts (Kit #541-0017) The building is about 3" deep, the dock adds another 2",
Originally I had planned on placing this small building and loading dock right next to the elevator. Then, I came across what Walthers describes as a vapor organic air cleaner is my parts box. I'm not exactly sure what a vapor organic air cleaner does but I decided to add it to the Hill's complex; between the small building/dock and the elevator.
Originally, I thought this is what the end product would look like.
After giving it some additional thought, I purchased another Walthers Concrete Elevator kit (the third one) and rebuilt the larger concrete elevator to look a bit more like the prototype.
Rolling Stock in Support of Hills Pet Nutrition
Backdating my rolling stock is an ongoing project. Some freight cars have been removed from the layout because they are not suitable for the era and/or region I am modeling. Other highly detailed, expensive and fragile models have been changed out for cars more suitable for an operating layout. All of the cars currently on the layout are reasonably representative of their prototypes, have metal wheel sets and most have Kadee #58 scale couplers. In addition, most have some degree of weathering. All of the cars shown below have waybills that include Hills Pet Nutrition in Bowling Green as a consignee.
Penn Central #888248 is a factory decorated Accurail ACF covered hopper. It is a low cost replacement for a Intermountain Railway covered hopper. In this case, the shipper is Consolidated Grain in Nauvoo, IL.
CNWX #109199 is one of those highly detailed and relatively expensive Intermountain Railway covered hoppers that can't easily be replaced with a lower cost alternative. The shipper is Richardson International in Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada.
BN #459627 is one of three Accurail PS 4750's that replaced three similar cars from Tangent Scale Models. I bought a 3-pack of these kits off ebay for less than the cost of a single Tangent car. One Tangent BN covered hopper is still on the layout. The shipper is Columbia Grain in Sweet Grass, MT.
Hills Pet Nutrition requires bags in a variety of sizes for kibble dog food. Bags are received from a couple sources. In this case, the bags are received from International Paper in Conklin, NY. I'm not sure who made D&H #25765. I think I bought it, as is, on ebay.
Southern #546 is another moderately priced Accurail kit. I bought four of these and used decals available from Accurail to renumber three of them. One problem with these cars is the color of the doors. The prototype car doors were unpainted aluminum. To Accurail's credit, they painted up some replacements and sent them to me. One of these days, I may get around to replacing the doors. These cars are used by Hills Pet Nutrition to ship dog food.
Southern #522771 is another "home road" car used to ship pet food. I'm not sure where I got this car; I think it's a Athearn car. Most of these cars were weathered using Bragdon's powdered pigments. It should be noted that most of the shippers on the Madisonville Sub uses cars provided by parent Southern Railway.
Latest Motive Power Additions
The MBG&C interchanges with the Penn Central at Evansville, IN. As a result, I thought a couple of PC locomotives were in order. PC #2823 is an ex New York Central U-28B. The PC on the nose and rear are the only indication of PC ownership. It's a Walthers Proto model with a Tsunami2 sound decoder, TCS KA-1 Keep-Alive, and a TCS 1740 speaker and enclosure. The trucks, roof and ends are lightly weathered.
The #2823, along with an ex NYC F7-A has just arrived at Preston Miller Yard in Bowling Green, KY from Evansville, IN. PC power is normally swapped out at Preston Miller before the train continues east (south) to Chattanooga.
PC F-7A #1701 is another Walthers Proto model. Like all the locomotives on the layout, it to is equipped with a Tsunami2, KA-1 and 1740 speaker/enclosure. While it still wears New York Central paint, it is heavily weathered. Most of the PC F-units were retired by the mid 1970's and a few never made it into PC paint.
And:
It's never a bad idea to stop by your local hobby shop. In my case, it's the Electric Train Shop in Burien, WA. While I was there, local modeler Mark Hills dropped by with several pieces of rolling stock he wanted to sell. Mark is an excellent modeler so I couldn't resist this 60' Intermountain flat car with a Vietnam era US Army 5-ton wrecker and grader anchored to the deck.
As always, your comments & suggestions are welcome.
sdepolo@outlook.com
