The Madisonville Sub: Construction Update #49

Mockups

Mock-ups are useful tools when developing a scene. Some modelers use cardboard, foam core or some other inexpensive material to build them. My local hobby shop has 12" square styrenepieces left over from a sign making company for $1 a piece. I built the mock-up shown below to represent Berry Global in Bowling Green. Berry Global makes plastic packaging and receives plastic pellets in covered hoppers. The Berry Global mock-up will serve as a stand in until the actual model is built by my friend Kurt Boyd.

Kurt's a busy guy who is also building a HO-Scale layout so it may be some time before he gets around to building the actual model. In the meantime, I decided to make the mock-up a little more presentable. Years ago, I used photographs to build both a HO and N-Scale model of Greenbaum's Home Furnishings here in Woodinville. Out of expediency, I used the same photos, slightly altered with Photoshop, for Berry Global.

The original photograph.

Photograph modified with Photo Shop

The original N-Scale Model

For those of you who are interested in this tecknique, I can email you a PDF for the Power Point presentation I did for the 4th Division of the NMRA or you can find it on YouTube by searching "Madisonville Sub" and scrolling down to "Building Model Railroad Structures with Photographs".

My New Helper

My ten year old grandson, Adam, has been running trains on my layouts since he was about five. Over the summer, when he's not storming up some hill on his dirt bike or doing some other outside activity, he's built a couple of models entirely on his own.

First, he painted and assembled this little office for Southern Recycling. I made the sign and Woodland Scenics provided the vehicle.

Then he found this Accurail kit on the shelf and asked if he could build it without my help. Here is the end result. He built the kit per the insturctions, added some metal wheel sets, and installed Kadee scale couplers. I did help him change the number since there was already a factory lettered car on the layout. Next, he wants to weather it so I will probably have to give him and hand with that.

Adam also got his first "real" locomotive. He used $40 of his own money and $100 loan from grandpa to acquire this Union Pacific GP-50. It's an Athearn RTR model with added details and a Tsunami2 sound system. All I did was add a TCS keep alive and programing to bring it up to Madisonville Sub standards. It looks and runs great!

Recent additions to the roster

ICG GP-38-2 is a Athearn Genesis model with factory equipped Tsunami2 sound. This model showed up on ebay and seller accepted an offer of $190.00. ICG pools power with the MBG&C between Paducah and Preston Miller.

While I have had these Athearn RTR models for some time, they are next up for a motor upgrade and the addition of Tsunami2 and a current keeper. I suspect they will spend a lot of time shuffling coal hoppers around at Palmer and Coalmont.