The Little Rock Line

[mu26aeh]

How do you have your backdrops secured to the benchwork ?  When I built my first layout with backdrops, I made a frame of 1 x 2's , and attached that to benchwork with metal L brackets.

[Bendtracker1]

How do you have your backdrops secured to the benchwork ?  When I built my first layout with backdrops, I made a frame of 1 x 2's , and attached that to benchwork with metal L brackets.

I did kind of similar to the way you did yours.
I ripped up a bunch of 3/4" plywood to 1-1/4" wide and made framing out of them.  Then I screwed them down to the bench top through the bottom plate.  Then I screwed the 1/8" masonite [hardboard] to the frames with pan head screws.
In time I will replace the pan heads with countersink screws and putty over them.

[GaryHinshaw]

Great to see the pike come to life, and that the tabs have been helpful.  Since 90% of my traffic will be through trains, I doubt I will use them, but I might for the few locals I have.  Are you planning to use them with through trains?  (Sorry if you already mentioned it.)

-gfh

[Bendtracker1]

Great to see the pike come to life, and that the tabs have been helpful.  Since 90% of my traffic will be through trains, I doubt I will use them, but I might for the few locals I have.  Are you planning to use them with through trains?  (Sorry if you already mentioned it.)

-gfh

It sure is Gary, it was the best ops session we've had so far, read: No mis-placements, lol
No worries. I have eight through trains that run during a full session of which only one drops offs 1-2 cars at Flappers, which are then picked up by the Haskell Turn towards the end of the day.

The only trains that make use of the tabs are the four manifests that feed El Dorado, the two Turns and the W&OV Turn.

[Bendtracker1]

Well it’s been awhile since I've posted any updates here.  I’m gonna quickly run through some of things that have happened and refer you to the blog with links and a few pictures.

December and January turned out to be a couple of bad months due to personal reasons and just took the winds out of my modeling sails.  Having got past the doom and gloom, I've managed to catch another round of wind and proceeded forward again.

The Tab-On-Car system has turned out to be a very simple system to use and has given us something else to help add to the operations: Off Spotting.  So far not one of the crews has complained about the switchover, actually most have found it much easier to use.
We ran two dry runs and then decided to do a full op session in late January when a fellow modeler from KC had contacted me about a possible visit after stumbling across my blog while designing his yard.
Coy came up to the Council Bluffs GTE show and then stopped by to chew the fat and run some trains.  To keep this short and simple, we had a blast and everything worked as expected.  Coy took on the Malvern job which kept him busy through most of the session and finally worked the Haskell turn. Afterwards we discussed his layout and how he wanted to design his yard so it worked similar to mine.  Basically his yard would serve as two towns much like mine.
It was great to have a visitor on the Little Rock Line.



Ops session #10

I also think I may have cornered my DCC gremlins as well!  I had worked all last summer installing chips in a large batch of my F and RS units.  Not once did I have any issues of the chips resetting themselves to a reduced speed.  Along about late November I started to get a few static discharges again.  About a week before session #10 was held, I noticed a large amount of the chips were all acting strange again. So I quickly reprogrammed the whole lot and then decided I would pick up a small humidifier and some Static Guard to spray on the floor mats.  I’m happy to report one or both of these things did the trick!  No one made mention of any static shocks throughout the session.

In late February I finally got the work bench cleared off of small projects and decided it was time to get something other track work on the layout.  I went back to work at Olin-Chlor in Malvern and picked up where I left off.
I had gotten the building done for Olin-Chlor but hadn't quite figured out where or how I wanted things arranged.  I did manage to get some of the Walther’s North Island Refinery built but the towers never made it off the bench.  They wound up in the trash and I quickly picked up some Tomytec Distillation towers to replace them.

Lets try this again shall we

Once they were done, things started to fall into place and I caught another gust of wind.  I decided to “pour” concrete throughout the Olin-Chlor complex using a styrene FOR SALE sign.



Olin-Chlor expansion part 7

Next I decided to try my hand at actually pouring some roads in Malvern using the Woodland Scenics Smooth-It and tape forms to see how they worked.



Roadwork In Malvern and a milestone!


Can't say I was overly impressed, but it did work.  I think I'm going to stick with styrene roads from now on out just due to the sanding dust and mess.  It was almost like sanding drywall.  Everything turned white!  I may still pour some areas depending on the situation at hand but keep the vacuum close by.



Roadwork in Malvern, part 2

I’m waiting on another Tomytec kit to show up, a set of upright storage tanks, as well as some hobby tools I've decided to pick up which should help my scratch building.  My next project will be to finalize the storage tanks and try my hand at building a tank car unloading platform at Olin-Chlor since I can't seem to find any of the 50’ TrainCat unloading platforms.  With the platform built and the roads in, I'm so hoping to get some grass down and start changing the look of Malvern.
 
 

[bdennis]

Nice work. I like the chemical plant.

[GaryHinshaw]

Very nice update.  I've been following your blog and enjoying the action from a distance.  Good to see you settling in with a new ops routine now, and I like where you're going with the plant.  I'm trying to follow suit and enjoy the motivation/peer pressure. 

[basementcalling]

Creative use of materials. I like the scribe pattern in the concrete. Good update. Love the blog. It has lots of good ideas to share.

[Bendtracker1]

Nice work. I like the chemical plant.

Thanks.

I've always been intrigued by all the piping and I have two bags of Walthers HO piping kits to experiment with. 

Very nice update.  I've been following your blog and enjoying the action from a distance.  Good to see you settling in with a new ops routine now, and I like where you're going with the plant.  I'm trying to follow suit and enjoy the motivation/peer pressure. 

 

Thanks for following along Gary.
Thanks to my friend Steven and Mark Dance, I've really come to like the tabs.  Years ago I always thought they'd ruin the scene, but as everyone I've talked to have said: Once you start moving the cars around, they seem to blend right in as if they are part of the scene.

Jump in Gary, the waters fine!  You're lucky enough to have Mark handy enough to show you first hand.

Creative use of materials. I like the scribe pattern in the concrete. Good update. Love the blog. It has lots of good ideas to share.

Thank you sir.  I wasn't sure how well it would turn out?  I didn't want the lines as deep as what you find in the commercial sheets from Evergreen, but I was also worried that they might be too fine to show up.
Most of what I have posted on my blog are ideas that I've learned from others and given a try.  I'm glad to pass them along.
Thanks for the kind words.

[JSL]

Allen it's great to see the progress. I so enjoy your thread here and your blog! One of the days I will get some more pics up. By the way what colour is your backdrop, it looks like great, mine looks a little purple.

[Bendtracker1]

Allen it's great to see the progress. I so enjoy your thread here and your blog! One of the days I will get some more pics up. By the way what colour is your backdrop, it looks like great, mine looks a little purple.

Thanks for the compliments JSL.
As for the color I really don't remember.  It was just a stock color from Menards or Sherwin Williams.  I'll see if I can dig up the brand and color when I get home this afternoon.
Don't bank on the color being correct as my photography isn't the best.  To be honest it looks a little on the teal side when viewing in person.  Looking forward to seeing some updates of your BNSF.

[Bendtracker1]

I got a chance to dig out the gallon of paint and got some pics of the formula.


Lucite

[Denver Road Doug]

Nice update....glad everything is going better for you personally.  I can sympathize...but I digress.      

I like the way the chemical plant is looking, too.

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Doug on both comments!
It was a rough couple of months.  The hard part is over but the problem is not completely gone, at least I'll be able to get past the issues now.

The plans for the Chemical plant has changed several times but I think I got a handle on it, now to find the time to finish it, lol.

[Bendtracker1]

My Tomytec Upright storage tanks arrived the other day. I got to say these are not too bad of kits.




I got them cleaned up and partially assembled then painted them, but I'm a little disappointed with the size of the railings though.
I tried sanding the catwalks down in thickness, but nothing will help mask the railings.





Sensing they might be to big, I also ordered some Gold Metal Models industrial catwalks and railings, looks like I'm going to need them.
Another thing I see is missing is a way to fill these tanks, nothing some piping won't take care of....

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