Modular Nickel Plate Road in Bellevue

[seusscaboose]

John (Berger) found this and passed it on

A must if you are  modeling Bellevue


http://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/2016/10/bellevue-oh-unique-signal-mast-at-nkp.html?m=1

[btrain]

John (Berger) found this and passed it on

A must if you are  modeling Bellevue


http://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/2016/10/bellevue-oh-unique-signal-mast-at-nkp.html?m=1

That's pretty darn cool, I've always liked the Center Street signal. I might use it with the heads flip flopped before the PRR Sandusky line enters into the NKP WB main at the passenger station.

I know @TrainCat2 made some B&O bracket signals, which are the closet thing I can find in N scale to what the NKP had, but I understand that he's been going through a good deal of personal matters at the moment. If anyone has one they're willing to sell or have some scratch building tips to build one, I'm all ears.

[btrain]

Been getting back into the modeling gear this month. Made a kitbashed Wheeling Tower (behind the turntable in the photo) that sat at the diamonds for the PRR, Wheeling District, NKP and the NYC Norwalk Branch. It's made of several pieces of DPM modular walls. It's missing some windows on the bottom level, but this isn't suppose to be a contest model.
The turntable is an old Walthers 120' Manual model, it has been weathered with chalks and the deck has stained stripes of wood, along with a center beam bent from a .080 piece of square styrene. All that it needs is a little house to protect the hostler.   
I settled on the yard office being on the lower end of the east bound yard where you can see it in the background. It's the office portion of the Walthers freight house and needs a little more work in the terms of lighting and taking care of the roof.

[seusscaboose]

That PRR tower at the interchange is still standing right?

[btrain]

That PRR tower at the interchange is still standing right?

Yep, bike passed it about a month ago. I think it's still being used for MOW storage.

[seusscaboose]

Yes
The mow guys have it

And the museum is always trying to get it in case I ever gets demolished

Did you use pics of it to model it?

[btrain]

Yes
The mow guys have it

And the museum is always trying to get it in case I ever gets demolished

Did you use pics of it to model it?

Yep, used several Morning Sun books about Bellevue and used Google Earth to get the approximate footprint of it. Also while doing research on it, I can across this article from the June 1947 issue of Railway Signalling. https://books.google.com/books?id=64_mAAAAMAAJ&dq=bellevue%20railway%20signaling%20june%201947&pg=PA361#v=onepage&q=bellevue%20railway%20signaling%20june%201947&f=false

[seusscaboose]

you've seen this right?

http://www.railsandtrails.com/NKP/Drawings/Bellevue/index.htm

[btrain]

you've seen this right?

http://www.railsandtrails.com/NKP/Drawings/Bellevue/index.htm

Oh yes! That still kills me about where 757 was supposed to go if the city was okay with the engine. Thank God there's a very good effort to return back home!

[seusscaboose]

I know the guys bringing it home

Grew up on trains with them

Buy a shirt

Support the cause

[btrain]

I had a problem with the legs on the layout. The design is based off the Modutrak design and work great, except I made some of the pockets that the tabs go into way too tight. I quick trip to the hardware store helped out, by getting more wingnuts to push out the tabs, and then a wipe down with Johnson and Johnson wood paste wax helped the tabs slide in and out more easily.



The east part of the yard is coming together and everything is lining up perfectly thanks to SCRAM software.



Unlike the first design and some of the pencil sketches that I've posted. Here is the current track plan that includes the small outpost of Kimball, where the NKP main crossed the B&O Sandusky to Newark branch.

[seusscaboose]

ok
now you're getting somewhere....

you should be able to sneak that stock yard EAST of the Icehouse...   near that Soy Farm...   

I'm excited to see what you do with Kimball... double track vs single track....

west of Bellevue yard (bottom of track plan) has potential... do you have the NKP track plan for that end ?  if not.. I do.. and can send you.... 

there's a ton of industries in there...   not the least important is the GE plant... and of course the PRR freight house...    both of which feed the proverbial "Operational Beast"

and the Wheeling freight house...   should be fun...

to bad you don't wander down this way...   we're having a NKP Layout planning session this weekend in Baltimore for my V2.

[btrain]

D'oh! I forgot to label that the tracks at the bottom as the staging yard. The stock yard would add some nice operational interest, but I'll keep that area as a soybean field with maybe a farmhouse and barn. I really dig this scene on the Caledonia Modutrak module with a rolling field. I feel it's even more possible after I visited the Scenic Express booth at the last train show I was at. While there, they had some new material from Busch of a plowed field (http://www.sceneryexpress.com/SMALL-FURROW-PLOWED-FIELD/productinfo/BH7183/) that way I have a nice visual break before the viewer turns to see the scene at Kimball.




I think I'll model one side of the GE factory in order to hide the staging yard a bit since it left a HUGE footprint in Bellevue. Here's some more info on the GE Bellevue plant, along with a former NKP steam locomotive heating the factory (http://www.lamptech.co.uk/Documents/Factory%20-%20US%20-%20Bellevue.htm).

I'd love to see how planning for NKP version 2 is coming along, send me some sketches!

[seusscaboose]

Damn
That scene is hot....

[mcjaco]

Some of our pockets got strips of styrene glued in there to open the gap up just a bit more.  We had the same problem from swelling, and drying of the wood. 

As for Jamie's Caledonia fields.....he about lost his mind.  Those lines of crops are all one bead of white glue, with ground foam.