Model Railroad Blog

Re-cycling Structures

 

Photo laminate on a blank wall of a DPM structure.

When I took down the old Monon  layout, I kept all of the structures and carefully packed them away.  At the time I had no clue how handy it would be to have them for the Brooklyn layout.  Turn of the century brick architecture is as much of a fit for Brooklyn as it was for Bloomington, IN so they’re great candidates for recycling.   Most are DPM either un-modified or kitbashed.  When I originally built them,to save time, I only constructed the portions that would be visible from aisle, often just using a sheet of styrene for walls that wouldn’t be seen. Those styrene walls are turning out to to be a really nice blank canvas for photo wallpaper.  I wasn’t sure how the photo laminate technique would work in N scale but I think it’s an even better fit than the larger scales because you want even less relief.

Working the Freight House

The freight house scene at the end of 1st Avenue is now complete and ready for operations. The structure is based on the Bush Terminal’s old facility on 1st Avenue. I’m happy (and relieved) to see that the photo wallpaper technique scales down to N scale.

 

 

With the freight house scene now complete, I can have some enjoyable mini op. sessions through scenery.  I like to run a short solo session at least once a week.  These are simple affairs running less than hour.  I recently staged a simple scenario centered around working the freight house and was surprised to find it took about 45 minutes.  The plan was simple, take four cars from the freight house/team track area and return them to the yard.  In addition, four cars buried in the yard needed to be fished out, blocked so the one for the team track was on the end, and then take the entire cut to be spotted at the freight house.

 

I began by pulling the empties from the freight house and dumping them on the street trackage on 1st Avenue just to get them out of the way.  Digging the inbound cars out of the yard and grouping them, although simple in concept, was pretty time consuming. Once they were organized with the team track car on the end they were spotted.  The switcher then grabbed the empties on 1st Avenue and took them back to the yard.  It didn’t take much track to spin out an enjoyable, relaxing, 45 minute session.

N Scale Code 40

I just finished the first run of ballasted track work on the layout.  Micro Engineering code 40 was used as the basis.  Every fifteenth tie or so was removed and a pc tie soldered in place for stability.  Once this was done, I took a number 11 blade and shaved all of the spike heads off to improve appearance and flange clearance.  Ties were air brushed with light gray acrylics and then stained with burnt umber artist oils followed by an india ink wash.  The rail was air brushed with burnt umber.

The Freight House

The first structure for the N scale Brooklyn Terminal is now complete.  Specifically, a representation of the old Bush Terminal facility at 1st Avenue and 48th Street in Brooklyn.  As with previous layouts, the model consists of photographs of the prototype, manipulated with photo editing software and then affixed to a braced styrene core. Stand off details such as roof details, conduits, scuppers, and drain pipess were added to increase depth.  The platform consists of Northeastern Scale lumber siding glued to a piece of quarter inch MDF and stained with Model Master US Army Helo Drab and Burnt Umber.

 

The Freight House

The first scene to be developed on the Brooklyn Terminal layout will be the corner of the layout near the freight house and interchange tracks.  The freight house model is based primarily on the Bush Terminal Facility that existed on First Avenue.  I was a little surprised that a scan of an image in the Flagg book was entirely usable for the photo wallpaper technique. I used .040″ styrene for the sides which is much thinner than I usually go…easy to cut but the consistency of leather so it needed to be fortified somehow.  I had some 1/8″ thick aluminum bar laying around the shop so I cut that up with a hacksaw (hacksaw blade in a saber saw. Wear eye protection when cutting) and glued it to the back of the styrene walls with CA.  Problem solved.  The aluminum backing added the necessary rigidity and then some.