AC&Y - Ohio's Road of Service

[btrain]

Nice and shiny like it might have looked straight off the International Car factory floor in 1947.  Ready for the flat finish coat and some weathering.

My goodness, that is absolutely stunning! I love the work you put into the cupola and the platforms, along with those grab irons. Excellent work, Steve!

[Cajonpassfan]

AC&Y 102, the road's only RS1, is complete.  Wire handrails and lots of fiddly little detail adds.  I think it turned out pretty well.  It's good to know I can still manage this level of detail.

I'm modeling 1960 +/-.  102 was scrapped in 1964, hence the rough look about it.  I have two ALCO S2s in the pipeline.  Finally some legit yard switchers on the property.

 Very nicely done!
Otto

[SAH]

Thank you.  Ya gotta love that new caboose smell.

[w neal]

PURDY!!

[SAH]

The test build is complete.  I also played around with adding sky to the photo.  Lots to learn but better than solid blue IMO.
I wonder if ballast can be added with photoshop?  Wouldn't THAT be a cool feature.

[davefoxx]

Did someone say ballast by PhotoShop?  Talk to me! 

DFF

[LKOrailroad]

Photoshop brushes will do the job. Just depends on how picky you want to be and how long do you want to spend. Example of not picky and 5 minutes.

[EDIT] Oops, wrong image. Try this one.
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[Ed Kapuscinski]

I am going to ballast my entire New NCR with photoshop.

[sirenwerks]

I am going to ballast my entire New NCR with photoshop.

It might take you less time to ballast in Reality.

[SAH]

After a few test ops sessions I decided there were enough things that bugged me about v1.0 (in this space anyway) that only a complete rebuild would solve.  All the sections could be reused, albeit some in drastically reconfigured shapes.  So, on Sept 12th 2021 it all came down.



This past week I did a final clean-up of the room and layout.  AC&Y Spur 4 v2.0 is ready for some ops tests.

Brittain Yard was rotated 90deg.  It now runs the long side of the room


The engine service section did not change but Spur 4 and the Main no longer cross behind the backdrop.  A HUGE point of contention on v1.0


The General Tire sections did not change all that much.  General Tire itself is behind the black transition panel.




The v1.0 Goodyear config created a major ops issue.  Too much reaching over, around, straining to see.  I've broken the ops aspect into two segments:  Between the buildings for inbound and outbound loads (to the right in the photo) and the power plant and chemicals to the left.


Spur 4 ends with a flight of fancy by including the synthetic rubber plant.  Same general area but not contiguous in reality.


I double ended Brittain to make better use of the long yard tracks.  Here's the East end.  I can now model the truncated Darrow Road and an industry between it and a better model of the mysterious Roxbury Viaduct.


It's time to put those freight cars to work.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I got very excited when I saw this post show up as new.
Then I read it. Even better!!!

Odd question: what are those knobs you used for turnout control?

[C855B]

Agreed! Looks great! And will you pass some of that motivation my way? 

[SAH]

The knobs are cabinet hardware from IKEA.  Purchased some time ago.  The balls are 3/4" wood from Hobby Lobby.  They connect to 6-32 threaded rod which drives the Blue Points.  Except for the Blue Points, very economical.

As far as motivation goes Mike, it's getting back to having and operating layout.  It's so much fun to see others bring your creation alive.

Steve

[SAH]

You must make certain your most important customer can be efficiently served.  Laying out Goodyear Plant #2 per the prototype did not work well at all.  Too much reaching and staining to see.
 



I believe orienting the ops areas in a linear fashion will work better.  We will see.

[SAH]

Ops testing has begun.  I've been refining the ops support stuff (holders for paperwork, uncoupling picks, throttles, etc) and checking the car blocking routine in the software.  I've run the Spur 4 General Tire / A&BB job.  Goodyear is next.