Monday, February 22, 2016

Model Railroad Progress Update

I am back from Korea!

It was a great tour, but I am happy to be back in the US of A, spending quality time with my lovely wife, eating plenty of BBQ and burgers, and of course, working on my model railroad.

A quick introduction to my layout: Its a fictional branch of one of my favorite prototypes, the Farmrail/Grainbelt system in western Oklahoma.  My layout depicts a "what if?" sort of scenario: a piece of the old Katy Northwest District from Elk City to points north is saved by a small short line and is later absorbed by Farmrail.

It's HO scale, built on shelf brackets and two hollow core doors in an L-shape in our spare bedroom.  Here is a track plan:


Operations are designed to be simple: Farmrail's Elk City switch job creeps up the branch a couple times a week to switch the Co-op elevator, team track, and the yet unnamed factory or warehouse.  There's been a recent uptick in traffic lately with lots of frack sand being delivered to the local drilling operations.

My layout has been hugely influenced by David Barrow's South Plains Industrial District project layout in Model Railroader as well as James McNab's Grimes Line layout.  However, the work of Lance Mindheim has been the most invaluable.  His book "How to Build a Switching Layout" has been my model railroading bible as I build my first serious attempt at a pike.  Its full of straightforward, easy to follow, and cost effective steps to tackle a small layout one project at a time and make a dream a reality.

Now, on to some photos of layout progress:








Since this is my first layout, and I don't plan on taking it with us to my next duty station, I tried to keep the cost down and focus on learning modeling techniques.  I built the benchwork on shelf brackets and hollow core doors (I even got a deal on the doors because one was slightly damaged).  Fascia and the backdrop are both Masonite.  I painted the backdrop a simple sky blue, as I'd rather have the eye focused on the layout than on scenes painted on the backdrop.  Track is Atlas Code 83.  I operate the turnouts with my fingertips rather than wiring a bunch of switch machines.  Next time I will definitely be using spring loaded turnouts from Peco or Micro Engineering.

I wired the layout with a Zephyr starter set from Digitrax.  Then, I weathered the track with some dark brown spray paint from the hardware store.  Next, I began ballasting the track with ballast from Arizona Rock & Mineral.  This has turned out to be a great investment.  I also got a little ballast spreader from a British company called Proses, and this has proven to be a great tool.  The ballast is all applied and now I'm working on applying layers of dirt to the grain elevator area.  Next projects will include building the staging cassette, installing a control panel for the Digitrax system, building and weathering the warehouse, and installing the road that bisects the track on the layout.  

I hope you've enjoyed this update, please stay tuned for more!


Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Blackwell Northern Gateway RR

Hello everyone!

I've been deployed to Korea and thus not had much time to update this blog, but I still have high hopes for it.  I'd like to share some pictures from my last railfanning trip before I left the states.  I was lucky enough to catch a rather obscure and not often used shortline in action, the Blackwell Northern Gateway RR.  It was late on a Sunday afternoon in May 2015; my wife and I were coming back from a short visit with family in Kansas.  I call my wife the "train whisperer" because it never fails: when she accompanies me, the shortlines stir.

The Blackwell Northern Gateway RR was formed by the Blackwell Industrial Authority to utilize a former AT&SF branch that is now owned by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.  It is operated by US Rail Partners.  The line connects to the BNSF at Wellington, KS.  There seems to be some seasonal grain traffic, but the Blackwell Industrial Park looked pretty dead and it appears that for now, this little operation is kept afloat providing car storage.

When we visited, we found a fairly long train of two bay hoppers creeping into Blackwell.  The crew shoved a few of them back into one of the industrial park spurs before tying the operation down for the night.  I noticed that they had brought a chain saw with them on the locomotive; makes sense due to the fact a large storm had just passed through and there might have been fallen branches on the tracks.  The crew gave me permission to walk down into the small "yard" to photograph the locomotives up close.

Enjoy!





Here's the link to the full album with more pictures and some more detailed descriptions: