Weekend Update 4/10/22

[ednadolski]

I worked on a little more static grass for some foreground scenery. There is a bit of a learning curve for me, since I don't really have any experience working with it, but I am happy with the results of the two hours I could sneak some modeling time into. I am learning as I go and still need to add some more detail, like deadfall under the trees.

Really love what you've done there, @Pomperaugrr  -- any hints you can share on materials, etc.?

Ed

[davefoxx]

Hey Foxx,

You are spend a lot of time working on your RR and positing on TRW ... what about Ally's railroad ?

We removed the winter scenic effects from Aly's layout a few months ago, and we're changing the theme to autumn.  Because I'm not confident at scenery, I am the king of procrastination.  Not much to see right now, but I'll update when we make some progress worth showing.

Thanks,
DFF

[Pomperaugrr]

Really love what you've done there, @Pomperaugrr  -- any hints you can share on materials, etc.?

Ed

The one time I tried static grass, years ago, it was one color of Woodland Scenics 2mm.  It looked like a lawn.  This time, I am doing a mix from 2mm to 7mm for these unmaintained areas.  I am randomly mixing a variety of lengths and colors to get the effect.  The static grass is a mixture of Woodland Scenics, Heiki and Silflor.  I apply 50/50 white glue and water, with a little 90% Iso alc., in random patterns.  When dry, I layer on a little more to get better height variations and to fill in open areas with a slightly different color mix.  I mix in some home made grass tufts that are various shapes and sizes.  There are a few "War Painter" commercial tufts that have a leafy texture mixed in, but these tend to be small, uniform round tufts.  I also sprinkle on a little dry grout (tans and browns) while everything is wet.  When dry, I hit it with a vacuum.    I'll use shorter lengths and fewer tufts in better maintained areas.  It is really nothing special, but I am trying to use a consistent color pallet, in a random way, if that makes any sense.

I have only done static grass along about an 8 foot section of foreground scenery right along the fascia so far.

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[dem34]

We removed the winter scenic effects from Aly's layout a few months ago, and we're changing the theme to autumn.  Because I'm not confident at scenery, I am the king of procrastination.  Not much to see right now, but I'll update when we make some progress worth showing.

Thanks,
DFF

Its like Summer but with reduced Kudzu and a couple trees painted reds and oranges.

[sirenwerks]

Another couple pictures from my layout, this time of Loudwater Grain Growers Elevator #2, in Jefferson.  Elevator #3 is the one in Gerti, Elevator #1 is at Silver City, off the layout.





This one is based on the early 1980s appearance of the Dakota Mill and Grain elevator on Wall, SD.  According to Google Maps, the prototype has changed dramatically in the last ten years, with most of the older structures gone.  Here is a 2009 picture, from the driveway, across from Wall Drug's parking lot.  Even this has changed from the 1980s, but the old elevators are still there.  The bin on the far left replaced the covered hopper unloading elevator in the blue building.

Beautiful shiny objects!  Excellent job!  I wish I knew enough about the workings of grain elevators to do them justice.  There aren't a lot of them in Oregon but I do love them...

[bbunge]

I’ve spent my weekend so far building this:

Highly recommend a Raspberry Pi, Octoprint, a webcam and the Polymer phone app.  File management is so much easier with Octoprint and the Pi.  The webcam and app are nice to allow you to check in on the printer if you are out of the room for the dreaded "ball o'filament.  And hairspray for the bed.

Bob

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Highly recommend a Raspberry Pi, Octoprint, a webcam and the Polymer phone app.  File management is so much easier with Octoprint and the Pi.  The webcam and app are nice to allow you to check in on the printer if you are out of the room for the dreaded "ball o'filament.  And hairspray for the bed.

Bob

Have you tried glue sticks for the build plate? So far I've had good luck and I feel like they're much better than blowing hair spray everywhere, but I'm still a n00b.

[bbunge]

Have you tried glue sticks for the build plate? So far I've had good luck and I feel like they're much better than blowing hair spray everywhere, but I'm still a n00b.

I have not.  I'll give it a try.

[nkalanaga]

Sirenwerks:  Thank you! 

There aren't nearly as many country elevators anywhere as there used to be.  You might still find some in north-central Oregon, but I wouldn't count on it.  With trucking fast and cheap, it's easier to haul the wheat directly to a major terminal elevator.

The old-style wooden elevators, usually metal-sheathed by the mid-20th century, are simple to model.  All of the workings are inside, so all you need is the main building, and a drive-through shed for unloading trucks or wagons.  Grain would be loaded into railcars through a pipe on the track side, or could be loaded in bags through the small door under the pipe.  With the arrival of covered hoppers, many elevators has two pipes, one above the other, often with a canvas extension on the upper one.

For a modern elevator, the Rix "tower" is the elevator.  It has a continuous bucket chain inside, and the cone-shaped object at the top has gates to direct the grain down the proper pipe.  Grain is unloaded from the bins from the bottom, and picked up by the elevator there.

Bins not connected directly to an elevator will have a door at the bottom, where the grain augur can be put under the bottom of the bin, to unload the bin.  I've never looked inside one of the bins, but they're probably like the plastic pellet silos where I work.  The bottom is tapered, with the actual bottom above the ground, and the bottom layer(s) of siding cover that.  The actual bin doesn't sit flat on the ground.  The augur can also be used to load a stand-alone bin, through a hatch in the bin roof.

On my elevator, covered hoppers can be loaded from either the old or modern elevator, but boxcars need to be loaded from the old elevator, using the lower, short loading pipe.  In use, it would probably also have a canvas hose attached.  The pipe connecting the modern elevator to the old one allows contents of the newer bins to be loaded through the old building.

In 1974, a lot of grain still moved in boxcars, so either one could be seen here.

[sirenwerks]

In 1974, a lot of grain still moved in boxcars, so either one could be seen here.

I have plenty of IM 6 panel box cars too, and early covered hoppers, but my chosen geographic focus is the Willamette Valley around Salem and Albany.  I am still trying to reckon what the surviving elevators were doing in the 70s, since I wasn't here then to know.  Maybe you could answer some beginner shipping questions I have, offline, though? 

[cfritschle]

I have plenty of IM 6 panel box cars too, and early covered hoppers, but my chosen geographic focus is the Willamette Valley around Salem and Albany.  I am still trying to reckon what the surviving elevators were doing in the 70s, since I wasn't here then to know.  Maybe you could answer some beginner shipping questions I have, offline, though?

Bryan,

Jensen Seed and Grain in Jefferson looks like it was around in the 1970s, and probably at that time was the Jefferson Seed Company judging by the faded lettering on the elevator.  https://www.google.com/maps/@44.7197505,-123.0073908,3a,41.1y,37.69h,96.13t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sFMjrtNEIBR8Q2MsFXrKRKQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DFMjrtNEIBR8Q2MsFXrKRKQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D152.67958%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

While Jensen Seed and Grain appears to no longer have rail service, it does look very similar to an elevator I delivered grain to in the 1970s in Caldwell, ID.  That elevator did ship by rail using covered hoppers at that time, and they got a much better rail rate to Portland if they ordered six covered hoppers at the time. 

Have you been able to find any books about the railroad history in your area of interest?  I have several books that cover Union Pacific operations in the Pacific Northwest, and most of them have historical photos showing some of the online industries being switched by the "local" that gives one a good idea of what rail cars served which industry. 

Railroad historical societies may also have industry specific information for your time period.

[James Costello]

I have only done static grass along about an 8 foot section of foreground scenery right along the fascia so far.

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Always love seeing photos of the layout @Pomperaugrr and the balance you've achieved between the trains and the scene itself. Roughly how deep is the layout in this section with the warehouses?

Thanks!

[sirenwerks]

Jensen Seed and Grain in Jefferson looks like it was around in the 1970s, and probably at that time was the Jefferson Seed Company judging by the faded lettering on the elevator.
While Jensen Seed and Grain appears to no longer have rail service, it does look very similar to an elevator I delivered grain to in the 1970s in Caldwell, ID.  That elevator did ship by rail using covered hoppers at that time, and they got a much better rail rate to Portland if they ordered six covered hoppers at the time. 

Jefferson is on the SP, but I have seen it on drives and, since I am not binding myself to specific structures, just trying to capture the feel.

Have you been able to find any books about the railroad history in your area of interest?  I have several books that cover Union Pacific operations in the Pacific Northwest, and most of them have historical photos showing some of the online industries being switched by the "local" that gives one a good idea of what rail cars served which industry. 

Oh yea.  Too many books.  But actually, there's not that much coverage of the Oregon Electric after it passed to the SP&S, and even less covering the industries along the railroad.  I've been trying to find folks who lived in the area for a while, since I only moved to Oregon six years ago and haven't had a heck of a lot of time to tool around.  And I have worked to back-date architecture as best as my historical knowledge allows.  Not always easy since some of this is a wholly new architecture to me.  For instance, the extensive use of wood in superstructure and siding  on large structures here, and the vaulted roofs; these are a change from what I am used to in Baltimore, which was all steel and brick, pitched and flat roofs.

[nkalanaga]

Since I don't know what was grown in the Willamette Valley in the 70s, I wouldn't be much help with the elevator traffic.  However, if I remember right, they grew a lot of grass for seed, so it could very well be grass seed.

An elevator could also be run in reverse, receiving various grains by rail, and shipping it out by truck.  In that case, it would probably, though not always, have a covered unloading area for the railcars, and a covered loading shed for the trucks.  Many feed mills looked like grain elevators for just that reason.  They'd receive bulk grain by rail, then sell it in small batches, as well as custom blending it for various livestock. 

There is one, now a dog food factory(!), near us, and I have a feed mill based on it on my layout.  It doesn't have a covered unloading area, so they could only dump hoppers in good weather.  When we moved back here, in 1978, they were still receiving both grain and packaging materials by rail.  When Chessie abandoned the Lexington Division, that ended.  The mill is still there, although all processing is in a more modern building.  It sits across the road from Kentucky Electric Steel, which another member is modeling.

The mechanics are the same, only the way the grain moves through the elevator is different.

[MetroRedLine]

I am always impressed by the caliber of modeling and depth of knowledge around here! 

I worked on a little more static grass for some foreground scenery. There is a bit of a learning curve for me, since I don't really have any experience working with it, but I am happy with the results of the two hours I could sneak some modeling time into. I am learning as I go and still need to add some more detail, like deadfall under the trees.
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Man, this is so good, I almost started to sneeze from the pollens.