Model Railroad Blog

Salco. 12/8/23

The SALCO structure as of today.

The three elements of a well executed structure are:

-Neatness and alignment

-Effective color treatment

-Appropriately thin parts thicknesses

Mastering the first two is a lifelong journey. No matter how much experience you have, attaining clean alignment with no gaps or skewed parts takes a lot of attention and focus. You’ll notice a long row of smaller windows across the top. For whatever reason, if elements like this are even slightly tilted or out of square, the eye picks up on it. I don’t know why. On the flip side, if a prototype dimension is off by a foot or so nobody will notice.

Due to the need to have the windows aligned, I decided to use the craft cutter for this job. Cutter is a misnomer. It’s more of a deep scriber as it won’t really cut anything thicker than .010″. This means the walls are a two layer laminate. The surface is produced with the cutter out of .020″ styrene. For stability I then laminate this onto a sturdier .060″ base. It would be impossible to get even a remotely clean look cutting the .060″ directly.

On the top we have the base and the two smaller slabs are the laminates (showing the back side). Both surfaces will be sprayed with Super77 and, after allowing 30 seconds to set, the overlays will be laminated on. You need to get these perfectly aligned before you press them together as you really don’t get a second chance!

Next up is filling the gaps with Squadron putty and sanding those smooth followed by the columns and roof. Stay tuned…..

SALCO

Next up on the East Rail 2 construction docket is SALCO which specializes in food grade salt and salt for water treatment. It’s an understated structure with a funky inset notch for the track. Salt, not being the most delicate of commodities, is often transported in the rattiest, patched out boxcars.

SALCO is the structure on the left with the odd notch in it. Notice the abandoned track in front.

“Searching For My Lost Shaker of Salt”? Somebody has a sense of humor. Sign over one of the loading doors.

A good overall look from Google Streetview

My best chance of success as far as keeping all of the windows and doors in alignment is going to be to cut everything with the craft cutter. I’m working on the CAD drawing now.

East Rail 2 – 12/2/23

Yard job Y320 out of Hialeah goes knee deep in the weeds as it works the logistics warehouse on my new East Rail 2 layout. As a general rule I don’t use sky images with clouds but in this case it was the better fit.

Here’s a shot from the same angle taken on the old layout probably around 2007 or so. It’s been fun to go back and re-create the old scenes.

A View Down the Canal

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It’s been a long time coming, but here’s a view down the canal on my new East Rail replica layout. I’ve tried hard to keep the flavor of the old one while, at the same time, making some subtle improvements.

Here’s the same shot on the old layout taken in 2009. Steel structures are relatively rare in Miami due to their vulnerability to hurricanes. Replacing the warehouses with block and stucco versions was the biggest change. The vegetation coloring on the old layout was a little off so I corrected that per my new scenery book. Other than that, the two are very close right down to the crumpled corrugated box on the left under the bush.

East Rail 2. Weeks Gas Scene

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Weeks Gas stands at the entry point into the East Rail industrial park so it’s a key visual element. Shown above is the finished scene on the layout. You’re standing at the edge of 37th Avenue facing NW. The structure itself is pretty basic so I modeled it out of styrene using conventional means. The vent and sign are photos though.

To help you get oriented, the image above shows where the photo was taken.