New yard tracks on the Somerville & St. Francis River

[supagav]

Hi,

With the amazing weather we`ve been having up north for the bank holiday weekend, we decided to finally get out into the garden and get moving with some of the bigger projects we`ve been putting off. The first and biggest of those was to install the new trackage for our paper mill complex. We had been buying up some second hand points and flex track over the winter months in preparation, so we jumped on the opportunity when we saw the weather forecast! This industry will fill a somewhat empty area at the bottom side of our garden, and creates another area of interest, as well as an extra challenge for switching crews working this facility.

The mill will feature one main building, which will have an door on the side to allow the entry of boxcars into the mill itself. The other spur beside this will be for the chemical unloading of inbound tank cars and special boxcars with Kaolin. The rear spur on the opposite side will be for inbound wood chips and pulpwood coming in on flatcars and woodchip hoppers. The yard also features a run around loop, plus a spur at the front for outbound cars waiting to be picked up. Finally a crossover in the middle helps to make the most of the available space, whilst adding a little interest and challange to switching in this area.

Here are some photos of the progress:





And a couple of the track crew (aka: my father!) hard at work:

 

[supagav]

Some of the electronics waiting to be installed:



An overview of the completed trackwork, prior to ballasting:









The little wooden strip that runs down the middle serves a couple of purposes, firstly to keep the ballast off the deck boards as this area is a through route to another area of the garden, and secondly just to finish off the area and discourage anyone walking over the yard tracks.

 

[supagav]

And finally some shots of the completed paper mill complex tracakage. We got out a GP9 and had a quick practice moving some cars around the area to get a feel of how we will organise the switching of this industry.

In these shots the track to the left of the geep will be the outbound "ready track" where loaded cars of paper rolls will be ready to be shipped out. The track to the right will be for incoming raw materials in the form of woodchips and pulpwood. It will eventually have a bucket scoop to unload the cars and large big piles of wood and chips scattered about:







And a few more showing the geep pushing some cars about:

 

[supagav]

In this shot you can see the top of the facility. The boxcar on the far left of the shot will be where the paper mill building will be located and boxcars can enter the loading bay via a roller shutter. The tank car on the track beside will be where the chemical unloading will be located, for all the chemicals used during the process, in tank cars and modified boxcars with roof hatches:




Here you can see a prototype photo of the type of car I`m talking about. The Southern Railway put roof hatches on the these cars so they could be loaded with Kaolin from above and then the cargo could be unloaded from the boxcar doors. I believe that kaolin was a fine white clay like material which was used as a filler in the paper making process:




Here are just some other photos of the day:







The point decoders will be hidden inside a low relief building which will be attached to the backdrop (to be completed!):

 

[KandNWLR]

Wow. Great weather for railway building - hope you got things finished

 

[supagav]

Thanks! It was crazy to be honest, 20C temperature in Scotland in mid April!

We got all the track work done, electronics and everything finished so it looks neat and tidy for our open day in about 8 weeks. As for all the buildings, they will probably all need to be scratch built so that will take a little more time, but at least we can add this area into our operations schedule.

 

[KandNWLR]

Thanks! It was crazy to be honest, 20C temperature in Scotland in mid April!

We got all the track work done, electronics and everything finished so it looks neat and tidy for our open day in about 8 weeks. As for all the buildings, they will probably all need to be scratch built so that will take a little more time, but at least we can add this area into our operations schedule.

6°C here in Alsace, but fortunately the railway is in the cellar. Keep up the pics

 

[Richie]

Fantastic work Gavin looks very smart I take it your Dad was left to do the work while you took the photo's .

 

[beavercreek]

Great doings on your line Gav. It will be a fantastic addition.

There is a Papermill modellers group on Yahoo.
Might have a few ideas you could nick (if you ever needed one that is!!)
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/PaperMillModelers/info?yguid=82406884

Also post 10 on this thread on this 'TheRailWire' forum link has quite a paper mill complex (indoor modelling of course!)
http://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=20229.0

 

[Gavin Sowry]

:-\ Very nice so far. I see you have used a 'chocolate block' electrical connection for joining some of the wires. From my experience, these blocks will fail due to the screws being 'cheap' steel. They will rust to the extent that they will not undo, or the head will break if you try. :'(

 

[supagav]

Thanks for the kind words guys!

This should add a lot more interest to the operational side of things. Our line features a lot of forest related products, pulpwood loading, a large sawmill complex, a lumber dealer, so this should be an interesting destination the car routing. Also it will ship out car loads of paper that will leave the railroad through interchange or our main staging yard which all represent destinations beyond our line.

Thanks for those links Mike, very much appreciated! I will check those out as soon as I can

Gavin: thanks for the tip. You are of course completely right about chocolate blocks, they are far from any good in the garden and in any other situation I would use solder and heat shrink connections. In this case as with a few other places where we have a few point decoders grouped together, they are sealed inside buildings and protected from the elements, so the screw connections allow the quick removal of a module for programming etc without disturbing any of the wiring round about.

 

[trammayo]

There was a time when the screws were genuine brass . I just cover the whole assembli in petroleum jelly.

 

[naepals550]

looks good pal hope to see it at the open day its been a couple of years since we were up there -the Crawford clan

 

[supagav]

Thanks guys, it would be good to see you! You are all more than welcome as always!

 

[supagav]

One last photo from the weekend I forgot to add.

Another member of the Somerville & St. Francis River track crew:



Phoebe, a real railway moggy supervising progress from the door of the train shed. Named after the famous the streamliner "The Phoebe Snow," which was used by the Lackawana Railroad and featured a young girl in a white dress as their advertising campaign! Seemed somehow appropriate for her

 

[Richie]

Lovely looking cat Gavin I take it from the photo she was in charge and over saw the work

 

[KandNWLR]

One last photo from the weekend I forgot to add.

Another member of the Somerville & St. Francis River track crew:

Phoebe, a real railway moggy supervising progress from the door of the train shed. Named after the famous the streamliner "The Phoebe Snow," which was used by the Lackawana Railroad and featured a young girl in a white dress as their advertising campaign! Seemed somehow appropriate for her

A real railway cat Haven´t convinced our feline that a trip to the cellar and K&NWLR is anything apart from strange, but since the track are at human hip level, perhaps that´s not surprising.

 

[supagav]

Thanks Richie!

At only 16 months, the outside world is still a strange place to her, and these large objects moving around the garden are an endless source of surprise and intrigue!

 

[Gavin Sowry]

I take it she was in charge and over saw the work

Cats come highly recommended for rodent control, particularly around the train shed.

 

[beavercreek]

We have had our little newbie for just over a year and a half now, and he is just beginning to learn the respect that a railroad deserves. tee hee hee

[attachimg=2]