Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

Tonight's ops session at Silicon Valley Lines was very well attended, with several guests visiting for the first time, which posed a little bit of a challenge to pair them up with a club member for their first couple runs. I ran with a guest, too, and we drew the Paso switcher, which had a bit of work to do. Later in the session I drew the Hallelujah Paper Mill switcher which was a good match, since it allowed me to help others with technical problems without leaving a train unattended in a siding or on the main line. This was also the first time that I ran this job during an official ops session. We start with some cars in the mill yard, and various cars spotted around the paper mill. After I pulled all cars from their spots and dropped them in the mill yard on tracks 1 and 2, train 380 arrives with 16 cars for the mill. The road power of train 380 switches the incoming cars into tracks 3 and 4 of the yard, and picks up the outgoing cars from tracks 1 and 2. Conveniently, this hap...

I brought the conveyor installation down to the club for another test fitting to ensure the scratch-built base actually clears the highest cars we have on the layout. Mission accomplished. I'll leave this on the layout for now, while other projects take precedence.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] After measuring the conveyor supports yesterday , it's time to build the supports for the conveyor transition housing. I started with four H-beams from my styrene stash. I slightly angled the H-beams outside to match the angle of the conveyor supports. I'm hoping to get the same clearance for trains passing underneath on the continuous running track, without building an awkwardly complicated structure behind the recycled paper warehouse. I was a bit concerned when I started. The beams looked rather odd. However, the structure started to look reasonable (especially for a background structure) as I added more cross beams and straightened out the arrangement. I might have angled the vertical beams a little bit too much, but that's ok, they are barely visible behind the warehouse anyways, so I'm not going to worry about it.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] Tonight I test fit the supports for the conveyor to the digester. While I rebuilt the conveyor transition housing in styrene, it still sits on it's paper support. I need to plan for clearances and figure out how to arrange the conveyor supports. The photo below shows the general look and feel I'm after. Test fit the support towers with an auto rack car ... ...  and a double stack container car. This should work

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] Back in October last year , I built a temporary base from paper for transitioning the large digester conveyor belt into the backdrop. The idea is to let the conveyor end in some kind of housing made from corrugated metal, similar to the conveyor cover. Since the paper mockup worked well, I transferred the wall shapes and sizes to Evergreen Styrene sheet and built the housing. I used Evergreen 4526 "Metal Siding" in 0.040 thickness, which is thicker than I'd like, but given that this is a background building, I'm not loosing any sleep over it. In the rear of the housing is a stub conveyor piece that "extends into" the backdrop. This is barely visible from the aisle, so I was mostly after suggesting there's something there. Test-fitting the conveyor with the new housing. Primed. Ready for paint and weathering.

Yep. This is what I had in mind. Building the lower base housing will be interesting. Towards the aisle I need to give the impression that the housing and its support structure extend all the way to the ground behind the warehouse. However, it needs to be built so that the club can use the semi-hidden track along the backdrop without any clearance issues. The upper part will be made from corrugated styrene sheet, while the support structure will likely be a combination of styrene sheet, H-beams of various sizes, and possibly some material from the tall support towers. The upper end of the conveyor will go into a similar housing to hide the end. The modifications I made two weeks ago work well. The conveyor sits lower on the digester, which helps with slope, and appears to connect to it. This will look better after I file the respective beam ends to the right angle.

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] The long conveyor needs to be shortened by about an inch. A cut-off disk in the Dremel made this easy enough. While cutting, the roof popped off with a bang. ... Oh, right, I glued it on in only a couple spots to make it easier to remove. That approach clearly worked well, but not as I had intended... Mission accomplished. I cut the conveyor end so that the support structure connects to the digester side and the belt meets the digester slightly above the top. For the lower end of the conveyor, I built a mockup from paper with some styrene reinforcement. Time for the next test fitting at the club. With that out of the way, I turned my attention back to the smaller conveyor units. The plan is to use them around the rotary dumper to transport wood chips to piles that will be represented only on the background. Typically these conveyors would have a covered top. I decided to assume some bracing structure that would carry a corrugated metal roof, and low profile ...

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ]  The conveyor is a little bit too long and maybe slightly too steep. Nevertheless, this is getting closer to what I had in mind here.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] Turns out I do need the full length of the new conveyor belt to bridge the gap to the top of the digester, so I built the 3rd section and glued it to the others. Next up: painting and some weathering on the modern conveyor, building a roof, painting and heavy weathering with rust on the small conveyor sections to be used in the older part of the mill.

[ Hallelujah Paper Posts ] Well, ... the Train Shop didn't have more the small conveyors I built the last time  in stock, but they had something better. The style of Walthers Modern Conveyor kit is exactly what I had in mind for the large conveyor to the top of the digester of Hallelujah Paper. I will use the smaller conveyors to transport the wood chips from the rotary dumper  "to" the wood chip dump represented only on the backdrop.

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] While I do need more conveyor belt assemblies , it looks like the plan to integrate foreground models and backdrop industry might work out nicely.

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] I didn't quite realize that the Walthers conveyor kit only has about 15 inches of conveyor segments in the package and I need on the order of 4 or 5 feet. More conveyors are needed. Oh well, the good thing is I did something different tonight.

 [ Hallelujah Paper posts ] Hallelujah Paper at Silicon Valley Lines is up and running. The paper machine is producing paper board and card board. I have not figured out how to model the proper olfactory experience yet, so I settled for the steam effect. A few more walkways were kitbashed and painted, as well as more pipes laid and connected. I'm trying something different with the plant roads. The templates I made last week were used to lay out and cut road pieces from from 0.125" styrene, and sprayed with medium gray primer, and light gray texture paint. The texture effect is a tad too strong, I might go back later and soften the texture with a wash or weathering. For now the road pieces are laid out throughout the plant. I'll let this simmer for a while. Let's see how I like this in a month or so and what the SVL membership has to say. I fitted one piece, glued it down and dressed it up in ground cover. Doesn't look too shabby. This shot at the Finished Paper...

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] This morning I spent an hour filling scenery gaps, while tonight I filled ballast gaps around the turnouts at the south end of Hallelujah, as well as unstuck another uncooperative turnout. Quite a difference to  a week ago . I couldn't quite make up my mind this morning how to approach detailing of the track at the chemicals unloading, so I brought the tanks to the club tonight. The verdict is to dress the track in a concrete slab. Some thin styrene should do the trick.

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] 1/16th styrene rod, a candle and a bit of patience contributed to this photo. What I haven't quite figured out yet is making exact bends, so that everything is parallel when multiple pipes run close to each other. I guess it's "just" practice.

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] Working off the to-do list , I removed the track embedded in Homasote in the rear of the benchwork. This is the very last remaining bit of trackage from the former Hallelujah Industrial area. Originally I left the track in place because it was not easy to remove, and planned to use it as backstop for the paper machine building. However, that idea didn't quite work out and the building ended up on top of the track instead of in front. Once I made the decision it was gone quickly. Since I had to remove all buildings I used the opportunity and glued down ground cover around the building foot prints. I want to keep the buildings removable, but also hide the gap along the bottom edge as much as possible. Creating a ground edge with some fine sand helps. Along with some more ground cover, I did more work on unsticking a stuck turnout, and I think I got it back to normal now. Rail on the north end of the paper mill yard got painted, too. Finally, since most bui...

I have the most fun making dilapidated models, partly because it's a lot easier to hide mistakes, but also because they just have more charme. This also applies to track, with the added complexity that one needs to make long stretches of track appear reasonably similar. They don't need to be exactly the same. Patches of different ballast, ties, or rails tell a story, too.  However, for patches to be patches, the rest should be uniform. Which makes for a somewhat boring modeling exercise. It's a great stress relief, though. "Ommmm."

[ Hallelujah Paper posts ] I turned off the layout room lights at Silicon Valley Lines and photographed the current state of the Hallelujah Paper mill. Above, we start with the signature scene first seen by visitors walking down the aisle towards Hallelujah: The large modern mill complex. The paper machine building dominates the background of the scene flanked by the finished paper warehouse to the left and the digester and power plant to the right. The paper mill has a small yard between the warehouse and the SVL main line. On the other side of the main complex is the pulp wood yard, the wood chips unloader and the old mill buildings, one of which is now used for shipping and receiving pulp and recycled paper. Basic scenery is nice, but there's still a lot to do .