Corn Syrup industries

The tank cars I reported on last post, are actually dedicated cars for the transport of high fructose corn syrup. This syrup is used in virtually all soft drinks. I found that the contents of one of these cars, is sufficient for 1.000.000 cans of Coca Cola or similar.
I've been doing some research and received a great deal of help from various persons on a variety of railroading forums, I've received articles, links and a lot more. It turns out that these cars and specifically their unloading facilities take up little space, but depending on the grade of syrup, might have different unloading spots along such facilities, but can be on the same track.
Therefore it's an industry that is easily added to a model railroad as it does everything you need for the limited space you have. It takes little space, and lot's of operational potential. Also the facilities are fairly basic in appearance, so not complicated to build either.
So you've guessed it, my 'to build' module will have such an industry on it.

To give you an idea on what these look like, here's an areal picture of one, this particular installation has 3 tracks, one for the unloading, and two to spot full and empty cars , but there are loads of similar examples that have just one track.

The other is a similar, but simpler facility, with two tracks.

My newest purchases

There, I couldn't help it, but I happened to pass a hobbyshop today, and had a look inside, and resistance was futile, I walked out with two tank cars, and a structure kit...

I now have got myself another 'problem'. My Wolter Springs module is now in the UK, and I've got nothing to operate these on, as I found these in a shop in the Netherlands...  (Harlaar modelbouw in Badhoevedorp, about 10K away from Amsterdam Schiphol airport by the way). 

So I am now trawling the internet for inspiration, to build myself a small, portable switching layout, just to have a bit of fun with while I'm over here. Once I've got a track plan I'll let you know, and I will post here from time to time how I get on with it.

A quick video

I shot this short video on Saturday, mainly as a motivation to myself to start working on my home layout in the coming period.
Hope it works the way I intend :-)

Overdue update

Wow I can't believe it is nearly October and I haven't posted in a while. The summer is now over, and the weather has been great for most of it, and even though it's officially Autumn, it still is very mild in general here in the UK. That has largely meant that my layout in the loft room was uncomfortably warm to work on, and the weather enticed us to be outside more and do other things with the family, and going on vacation. I guess it's a pattern that most model railroaders recognise.
I haven't been entirely idle though, the last couple of weeks I managed to make progress on my module boards, to the extend that base scenery is done, and it has been used in a first modular railroad gathering of my local group.
I've located a few problems on it, that I need to improve, mostly allignment issues ( I need to drill out the legs a bit deeper so that the adjustable bolts have a greater range) , and there was a strange electrical problem with it too, about half way into the operating session, so I need to figure out what happened there.

Anyway, here's a picture of it in action:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12783415@N06/9859845944/

and here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12783415@N06/9859864736/

Koos

Card stock modeling

Recently I've taken an interest in card stock modeling.
I've seen many pictures on the interweb, that shows some nice looking structures made of card stock or some kind of hybrid.
So I decided to give it a go.
I've purchased/downloaded a couple of structures from the 'Clever Models' website, (they have a couple of freebies too) as well as a small building from the 'model train software' website. see: http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com .
The last example is actually software that along with some examples, basically supplies you with a design package and lots of texture templates, to design and create you're own buildings. The Clever models site has a series of pre-designed structures ready for down load, as well as several textures (brick walls, windows etc) to make your own. See http://www.clevermodels.net/ .

I've also bought a couple of grades of paper to print these on, to experiment with what works best. So far I've got some sheets of 120gr/m2 , 160gr/m2 and 300 gr/m2 from an arts and craft supplier, to try things out with, and I decided to build a first structure using the 160 gr/m2 grade paper.

Here's my 'freebie' structure from the model-train-software site under construction. So far so good. I know some of my regular visitors build in card stock too, so I'd be curious if you have any good sites for me to find good structure models , obviously north american prototypes, and if they are Californian prototypes, even better. :-)

Bachrus rolling saddles

 .Today I took delivery of my Bachrus Rolling Saddles.

These locomotive rolling stands, enable you to work on your locomotive , while not requiring a whole layout. You can run in a locomotive when new, use it to set up DCC decoders etc.
I bought mine from www.sprog-dcc.co.uk.  A basic set of 4 stands , enough for a loco with 4 driven axles will set you back just under 50 GBP. While not cheap, they are very well made and can be used for other gauges too (the type I have can be used for HO to S scale).
For 6 axle locos you can order an additional set of 2 stands (which I've done ), and there are also stands for steam engine tenders with non driven axles etc.
It will get a bit pricey when you need to run in articulated locomotives such as a Big boy, but this tool is very useful, and I'd recommend it to anyone with a larger locomotive fleet, or does regular maintenance or modification work to their locomotives.
Here it is in action using my Atlas GP38-2. It enabled me to properly tune in the ESU decoder inside this locomotive. One thing I've found already is that particularly at higher speeds, the volume of the current speaker isn't high enough , the mechanism is louder. Something I would not have found until it was run on a bigger layout....

grass lands

Here another progress shot of the grass area I'm working on.
This is purely to demonstrate how a few different shades and textures mixed create a more realistic appearance.
More has since been added, but as it is still wet of glue, I'll wait with taking a picture of it.