Shelf Project Update 3

Here's the completed trackwork, installed and weathered, although some wiring remains, and the tracks need to be straightened and fastened down:

You can match this against the original track plan. I added a space between the two tracks closest to the wall, which will make the track second-closest a team track with paved access.

The stub on the far right in the photo will be connected to a Unitrack 14-7/8 inch radius curve that will lead to a repositioned stand-alone micro layout so that it can be incorporated into regular layout operation.

For now, the new station is named Malabar. Malabar Yard, a few miles away in Vernon, CA on the BNSF, is a favorite railfan spot and somewhat similar to the arrangement here.

I've run one full test train using a switchlist in and out of Malabar. This is leading to some tuning and debugging of trackwork and clearances. I've also set up some locals to serve Malabar on JMRI Operations. Below is a typical switchlist (click for a larger image):

I'm still working out exactly how I will operate this. The clearance on the runaround track is only 152 scale feet, not counting space for the caboose. This limits trains to 3 or 4 cars. One of the King Mill flats I'm using temporarily here is named Huger Davidson Sale Wholesale Grocers, so I'm making it a destination for ice and mechanical reefers and RBL cars. I definitely like the idea of having these spots for reefers, and this will continue, whatever the final industries here will be.

In another development, John R e-mailed me with the information that he'd located a bluebox Athearn WP Bulk Sugar car on eBay, which means we can interchange such a car in virtual ops sessions. Now I'll have to figure out how it will fit into operations. The stand-alone micro layout that's going to be streamed onto the end of the Malabar branch has a factory that could conceivably be used as a sugar refinery. Thois was included in a Walthers low-relief building kit that was based on their Greatland Sugar Refinery, so at least there's some justification for this!

This is also a motivation to continue with the project and get the micro layout mounted on the wall to the right of the shelf.

Shelf Project Update 2

I received my next order of Unitrack, which now has me at about 90% of the project. I've been adding insulated rail joiner gaps, putting in drops and an extension of the DCC bus to the shelf, and have begun installing DCC stationary decoders for the Unitrack switches. I've also weathered the track

I've found there's no good way to install Kadee 308 under-the-track uncouplers with Unitrack. The roadbed puts the rails too high for the magnet to work the couplers if you just try to install the magnet under the roadbed, so you have to hack a space out for it. I'll cover this with ballast when the time comes.

I took advantage of the Trainworld deal-you-can't refuse for the $50 Bachmann GP9 that Neal M put us onto. The West Isle Line that I've blogged about used to be the Santa Fe Alpaugh Spur, and I figure that instead of the ex SP GP9 the line now uses, the Santa Fe could well have operated it with a GP9 of its own. The recent Bachmann units from the last 10 years or so mostly have very good, crisp, opaque, and accurate paint. I really like this one.

Here it's sitting on top of the Blair Line culvert that I was able to paint, assemble, and install. It will be "dirted in" later.

Shelf Project Update

I finished two more King Mill building flats:

This brings me almost to the end of my King Mill stash, but it gives me a supply of possible flats I can swap out to use as temporary scenery for the shelf while I firm up what I'll eventually do with it. More Unitrack is on order and should arrive later this week as well, but my suppliers lately have gotten passive-aggressive about filling orders and shipping. Sheesh.

As I've posted before, I like culverts, and I try to install as many in my scenery as I can. Searching for one that would fit in a cramped environment like the shelf project, I found this Blair Line product:

I ordered this from an eBay seller. I've found that eBay usually gets stuff to my mailbox within a few days, but this seller was passive-aggressive, too. I messaged him asking what his projected ship date was, and his response was to cancel my order "at purchaser request". So I ordered direct from Blair Line and should get this around the time I get my Unitrack.

Meanwhile I prepped the layout base. I cut a slot 3/4 inch wide partway through the shelf, per the dimensions in the drawing. I clamped a piece of plywood underneath the slot to maintain the strength of the shelf:

Here it is with the clamps off:

I used a sanding cylinder in my Dremel to carve out the sides of the ditch and extend the stream base farther back:

Here's the result after vacuuming all the sawdust and stuff:

I painted the Celotex with some beige-colored craft paint from Michaels:

And here;'s the curve back in position.

The shelf brackets behind this scene will be removed when I reposition the micro layout that had been on them to put it in line with the track going through the shelf. I covered that in this post last August.

More Background Flats

As I said a few months ago, I periodically get into project jags where I build a number of background flats. The best by far came from King Mill. When he went out of business, he had a big clearance, and I picked up a good number of them. At this point, I'm getting to the end of these, and I've been looking for other sources.

The current project jag came from wanting to build some structures for the new extension onto the shelf in the next room. I haven't decided exactly where they'll go, or if they'll eventually wind up on the shelf at all, but the great thing is that they're very inexpensive. I build most to a standard depth of one inch, so they're interchangeable wherever I decide to use such low-relief flats.

King Mill made two kinds of flats, those that had no side wings to allow them to be made into low-relief buildings, so you had to glue them directly to the backdrop, and those with side wings that would allow you to build a basic shape out of foamcore to which the image can be glued to create a low-relief building flat. However, I've been able to kitbash pieces from other flats, as well as building papers from other sources, that can turn the flat-image versions into low-relief buildings as well.

The two examples below are low-rellief buildings made from flat King Mill images, merged with bits and pieces from other King Mill versions and other building papers, mounted on a basic form made from foamcore.

Below are two low-relief buildings from a different source, Trackside Scenery. His flats are very similar to those from King Mill, printed on a large sheet of high-quality photo paper, but the builder is left to make his own substructure from foamcore or similar material. Also, somewhat like King Mill, the "kits" aren't really complete; sometimes images aren't available for a full set of walls or corner pieces, and you have to be creative. For me, that's part of the challenge. On these buildings, I added roofing from a sheet King Mill used to sell, and I built up basic forms from foamcore with additional interior bracing.

So far, the flats I've built up from foamcore have held up very well for as long as eight years or so -- there's little or no warping, but it's important to add interior bracing. They're very lightweight and easy to relocate. Also important, the images themselves are quite inexpensive, and a sheet of plain white foamcore is about $3.00 at Michaels. Depending on building size, I can get three to five from a sheet.

George Sellios seems to have loaded up on King Mill flats, probably when he ran his final clearance. Here are some shots I found on the web of King Mill and similar flats on the F&SM:

More Thoughts On Rail Dairy Shipments From California

More research on the web shows that the dairy industry has been very important in California since the early 20th century. For instance, I found this photo from the 1920s of the California Central Creamery in Arcata, CA:

Arcata is Northwestern Pacific territory. Railroad tracks in the foreground suggest rail shipments of dairy products took place here. I have a DVD covering the last years of the Northwestern Pacific under SP and the North Coast Rail Authority that shows butter moving even in the 1990s in PFE 57-foot mechanical reefers.

Cheese isn't mentioned too much as a rail-shipped California dairy product. In fact, it isn't completely clear how dairy products were shipped in earlier years. Common products from San Joaquin Valley creameries were powdered and evaporated milk, which probably didn't need refrigeration and could have been shipped crated in boxcars. On the other hand, Railex, a fairly new refrigerated logistics company, advertises its ability to ship dairy products, as well as beer and wine, in current-generation refrigerator cars. Much of this business comes from California.

Leprino Foods, as I've mentioned a major rail shipper, came into the California market sometime after the 1970s with the growth of fast-food pizza. From Forbes,

In the 1970s, Wisconsin and New York were producing most of the country's milk, but California's nascent dairy industry often priced milk lower. Leprino had the foresight to engage in some arbitrage, locking California dairy farmers into multi-decade contracts at rates that were often above-market locally but below-market nationally. Over the next two decades, Leprino Foods also signed sweetheart deals with co-ops that eventually became the Dairy Farmers of America, securing a lasting milk supply with the country's largest dairy co-op; the company also purchased and renovated some of the older dairy plants, cutting off the options for competitors who wanted to process milk.

I still like the idea of a cheese factory as an industry, but I'm seeing that I should be using newer mechanical reefers to serve it. At ths point, I can be fairly sure that Leprino's older facility in Lemoore was shipping over what had been the SP Coalinga branch before it was spun off to the San Joaquin Valley Railroad in the early 1990s. This would probably have used 57-foot reefers in PFE paint. I can probably get away with using earlier 50-foot mechanical reefers as well.

Here are some shots of tests to see what I can get away with on 14-9/16 inch Kato Unitrack curves. Here's a bluebox PFE 57-footer in the last PFE scheme. It just barely fits, but it fits.

Here's a Walthers 70-foot cryo reefer. It fits on the curve, but the Plate F clearance won't go through the benchwork thread-the-needle clearances to get to the shelf. Oh, well.

Another shot of the testing. I'm very pleased with how reliable the Unitrack is in cramped space here.

Prototype

Last week, my wife and I were able to make a trip up north, which gave me a chance to do some railfanning in one of my favorite areas, the San Joaquin Valley. As I'm working on the new layout extension, I've been inspired by prototypes in the Valley and some other areas of California, and it was good to add some of the prototype to the mix.

I was able to stop by the West Isle Line, though it wasn't on one of its operating days. Here's a shot of the loco and the gon that's always coupled to it, through the fence:

Here's a view of the Crop Production Services facility the West Isle Line serves:

One challenge in modeling the San Joaquin Valley is the size of most rail-served facilities, which you can see here.

I mentioned a cheese factory in my last post as a possible industry to locate on the new shelf. Leprino Foods is the major supplier of frozen pizza cheese in the country, if not the world. It has two plants in Lemoore, CA. Here's a shot of the older one near downtown Lemoore:

This is the smaller and older of the two plants. Leprino is a major shipper on the San Joaquin Valley Railroad, using UP and CREX mechanical reefers. The biggest problem I see with Leprino as a prototype is that its plants date from the 1980s and would be difficult to back-engineer to allow older PFE reefers to serve them. I haven't been able to find much on rail service to older cheese facilities in the San Joaquin Valley. I'd prefer to have an older, more "industrial"-looking prototype on my layout, and I'm still thinking how I'm going to handle this.

Here are two pictures of a facility I found in Kerman, CA next to the northern section of the San Joaquin Valley Railroad. I doubt if it's still served by the railroad, but it probably was at one time:

A more traditional grain elevator in Firebaugh, CA, still served by the SJVR:

Scenery in the San Joaquin Valley:

This is all grist for the mill.