Freemo-N Skally Line

[el Gato Gordo]

What Paul said! But I'm not buying gas at your BP. That's a dollar more than it is here in Colorado! Or at least it was yesterday. Ouch!

[The Ol' Curmudgeon]

Good eye! I just installed my last bungalow at another spot on the layout, so I need to pick up some more to help fill the scene out.

Ah, it's just part of what I do for a living, Karl. So when I see a crossing anywhere, I'm looking to see what kind of case or bungalow is there, and if it has gates, what brand of mechanism. Same thing on a layout. ...

[aflica]

Hi Karl

Just finished going thru this thread . Super impressed with the eye to detail and the scratch built structures . I will be following your progress as you post up .
I would like to give you one big thanks here , rather than hit all the buttons and flood you from previous updates .

Thanks for taking the time to update us

Steve

[jpwisc]

Someday I will get this thread caught up with the layout. I've been working on scenery. I think I have surpassed the 1000 tree mark now.



I also started painting the trees on the backdrop. I need to slide the layout off the wall to finish this project.


And I've been adding more static grass. I've been using Silfor 2mm mixed with 4mm for a nice natural look.


Now I need to get it all cleaned up and ready for my next ops session.

[Allen H.]

1000 tree mark, Yikes!
Looks fantastic Karl.
What color grass are you using if I may ask?

[jpwisc]

1000 tree mark, Yikes!
Looks fantastic Karl.
What color grass are you using if I may ask?

I’ll double check when I get home, but I think it’s Early Summer.

[epumph]

love the rail fanning spot!

[The Ol' Curmudgeon]

Looks great! Amazing how a layout can gobble trees.

[wombat457]

Agree with all of the above - it looks amazing sir!

[jpwisc]

love the rail fanning spot!

That is a great railfanning spot in real life. I made the suburban to look like one driven by a railfan friend. That was always his favorite spot on the line.

[jpwisc]

Looks great! Amazing how a layout can gobble trees.

No doubt! I found 150 supertrees (cut down to an N Scale height) covers about 1 square foot. It's a lot of work, but I feel it's worth it.

[jhn_plsn]

Your Supertree results are great.

[jpwisc]

I've been continuing my backdrop painting. I am very happy with how it looks (my phone doesn't capture the colors as well as the naked eye). I also wrapped my foamcore Titan-Lansing tower with photographs I photoshopped of the prototype. I will add a styrene roof. This improves the look for the stand-in until I can build the final tower out of styrene.

[el Gato Gordo]

That tower looks like a finished product in this photo!

[jpwisc]

I had the fortune of running two ops sessions this week. Monday my friend Lee came over and Wednesday my friend Shaun came over. It was fun getting to run a pair of sessions so close together (it saved my time cleaning track). I experimentally added a unit sand train to the ops to see how it would affect car flow on the layout. It actually worked really well.
Shaun took these shots:


If you are on FB, check out his Modern DT&I layout (HO but awesome).

[jpwisc]

[SOO]

It just keeps getting better and better.

AWESOME JOB!!!!

Y-it

[samusi01]

Looks very good!

When I was in the frac sand business some years ago, our trains looked like the head end of yours: all private cars. System cars - we mostly shipped UP - were quite rare; it may be different on the BNSF. As it's been a few years, the fleets may have gotten more standardized but occasionally someone would send us a 'battleship':

IFRX476215.jpg

We didn't like them as the car tare was 10,000 lbs. more, which cut directly into how much sand we could load into them. The usual was short two bays as far as could be seen.

Sand.jpg

A few other shots for your weathering projects:
NDYX.jpg
SHQX.jpg
photo 2.jpg

Sam

[jpwisc]

Looks very good!

When I was in the frac sand business some years ago, our trains looked like the head end of yours: all private cars. System cars - we mostly shipped UP - were quite rare; it may be different on the BNSF. As it's been a few years, the fleets may have gotten more standardized but occasionally someone would send us a 'battleship':


We didn't like them as the car tare was 10,000 lbs. more, which cut directly into how much sand we could load into them. The usual was short two bays as far as could be seen.

A few other shots for your weathering projects:

Sam

Sam,
You are spot on! That’s exactly how the real Skally runs. The ACFX cars are my “unit train” fleet. I need a couple more (23 cars is all the layout can hold on one train. The BN/BNSF cars are for the sand plants loose car sales. Most of the time those would be privately owned cars. I may patch out those eventually, but they are good place holders until more grey leasers are available. Often old three bays get sent, but so many of those get rejected by the sand plant and have to be repaired before they’ll use them. Some are so bad they get scrapped on the line. I live the Aware tag! He one of my favorite taggers.

For the video I just hooked every 2 Bay I had together to see if they would hold (they did after I tuned three of the cars. The new IM ones are heavy. This train had some heft.

[Bessemer Bob]

Great modeling!

You really are capturing the feel, keep up the great work