Hello y'all!
Now that we're settled here in North Carolina, I thought I'd update you on my latest modeling project. I've been working on a small layout, about 1.5 x 5 ft (plus a 3 ft staging cassette). Its based on the Palmetto Spur project layout in Lance Mindheim's book How To Build a Switching Layout (essentially my model railroading Bible!).
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| Switching action on the new layout! |
The layout depicts a portion of an industrial park just south of Clinton, OK on the Farmrail System. The industrial park is mostly occupied by oilfield suppliers, and customers receive sand, drilling fluids, and chemicals by rail.
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| Here's the Clinton, OK switch job working the industrial park back in February. Both the boxcar and hopper have drilling fluids, which are actually shipped as a powder mix. |
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| A satellite view of the industrial park. The mainline of the Grainbelt line (Farmrail's subsidiary that owns a former Frisco/Burlington Northern line from Enid, OK to Frederick, OK) is along the right side of the screen shot. My layout is based on the longest spur in the middle, but I'm not following the prototype exactly. |
One interesting thing about the prototype is there is no run-around track here! The crew uses two locomotives and separates them for the trip back north to the yard, placing a locomotive on each end of the train. Since my layout only depicts switching one of the spurs, I don't have to worry about this.
I wanted to get something up and running quickly, so I decided to go for a very limited project rather than using the entire room I have at my disposal. We rent, so I didn't want to attach a shelf to a wall; the layout is on simple free standing benchwork made with premium pine and topped with insulation foam.
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| Track is Peco Code 83 with #6 turnouts. I weathered it with Rustoleum camo brown spray paint. The layout is controlled by a Digitrax Zephyr system. |
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| I ballasted the track using a blend of products from Arizona Rock & Mineral. |
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| Here's an overall look at the layout early during construction. Its lit by a single LED light bar I picked up from Lowe's |
I decided to model three spurs with three different industries. The shortest spur serves as a transload point for chemicals for Coastal Energy. It can handle two tank cars at a time. The next longest spur serves drilling fluid supplier Rock Creek Environmental. They receive drilling fluids in two ways: pressurized covered hoppers and in bags on pallets inside boxcars. This gives me an industry with multiple car spots to increase switching interest. The longest spur is a team track where multiple customers transload frack sand. Cars can be unloaded on both sides of the street, so long cuts of cars have to be broken up. Finally, the end of the lead "main" can also be used for car storage and off-spot cars.
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| Switching the team track where multiple companies transload sand for fracking. |
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| Switching Rock Creek Environmental. Notice the off-spot hopper on the lead towards the back. The grass is a blend of Heiki and Silflor static grass, applied with a Peco applicator. |
Overall, its a very fun little layout to operate. A typical switching session lasts about 20 min. No bad for three turnouts! I'm working on the final structure, a large warehouse for Rock Creek Environmental. I've also started adding details and some more tufts of weeds and grass, and weathering more rolling stock.
I hope to have more updates and a YouTube video to share soon!
