Conrail Windsor St Yard (York PA) Engineering Report

[hunter_alexander]

Looks great. I like the ballast.

BTW, on page 1 and 2, where did you get the semi correct bay window caboose that is labeled PC?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm not sure where the caboose came from. Lee?

[davefoxx]

I'm not sure where the caboose came from. Lee?

Yeah, that's Lee's PC caboose on his layout before it was torn down.  The paneling in the background gives that away.  I don't know if he still has it, though.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Success!

After things dried out, everything still looked ok.





I am incredibly relieved!

[nuno81291]

Looks great! How much debris are you going to aim for? Any Proto photos you can drop here?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Not a ton, but I'm thinking definitely some. I'm really up in the air about what to do down the other end, where the former engine terminal was.

I'm planning an MOW yard at the one end, but other than that, I'm just thinking "weedy expanse".

I also need more proto photos. It's tough to find good ones, honestly.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Now that the ballasting is mostly done, I'm going back to add in some detail scenicing.

These are my references:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qqepavnr9d1e65b/AACb2wdSviCgmaok2mzax_Y9a?dl=0

But I'm not happy with what I've tried so far down here all the way at the end. Luckily, nothing is glued down and everything above the ballast can be vacuumed up.

What do you guys think?

Now, keep in mind, this is also supposed to be the "edge" of the yard, not dead center.

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[Scottl]

I like it, it has a decent randomness to it and the colors are suitably subdued.

[wcfn100]

Those polyfiber or whatever bushes are killing it for me.  Can you take those out and see what it looks like?


Jason

[seusscaboose]

all I se is a big ugly microswitch 

[nuno81291]

What grabbed my eye in a bad way is the "chunks" near the deadfall in the foreground... Look like huge leaves but maybe my eyes are playing tricks. Also based on the photos in the Dropbox folder I would aim to put some more static grass type material around the edge of the foreground area like ~4mm,appears to be a decent amount of wait+ height grass in some areas in a lot of photos... Are you doing winter? Maybe aiming to do some of the puddles would be good for variation as well.

[Santa Fe Guy]

So far so good Ed, however I'm with the guys about the poly fibre. There are a lot better products out there to look at in the Scenic Express range that look way better. Their Static grass range is one plus all the tufts and other foliage. Don't just look at Woodland Scenics there is a whole lot of neat stuff around that they do not have that will work and look better.
Rod.

[hunter_alexander]

Yeah everything looks great but the Polly fiber. But the ballast and the rest looks great

[Bendtracker1]

Ed,
Overall it look really good.
As for the polyfiber, before removing it, maybe try to tease it a bit and pull it upwards and trim if needed for height.
Then try sprinkling a small amount of ground up leaves to it to make it look like there are some remaining dead leaves hanging on.  Similar to what Dave Foxx and I did to our Kudzu.  Not sure if Scenic Express makes brown leaves?  You could also try adding some small amounts of tan or light brown ground foam as well.

Otherwise like Rod and nuno81291 mentioned:  replace it with some brown or tan static grass or tufts.
The colors look good.

[MichaelWinicki]

Here's another yard view... Olean, NY yard about 1970.  CR used the yard until 1980 when a new yard was built. 



The tracks to the left were the local-yard.

The track to the right is or was the main to Oil City, PA until about 10 years prior to this image.

Ballast?  We don't need any stinkin ballast.