Construction in Fordyce

After sticking a fork in the scene at Gavilon, I decided to move on to the town of Fordyce.  Instead of trying to get all the fine details wrapped up at Gavilon I figured I try to get more scenery roughed across the layout and cover up the brown paint and ceiling tile.

To start with I got the mainline ballasted through town and then started on the buildings.  The first one is the new Walthers Modern Concrete Warehouse that I'm using for the processing and cold storage building for the Flappers Chicken complex.

This is a pretty nice kit, the parts are clean and well designed, though the instructions are kind of lacking.  Once I got the walls laid out how I wanted them, the kit went together pretty fast.  One thing I really liked about this kit were the rail doors.  They were pretty much spot on where I needed them.  The truck doors I just kind of winged them into place.  

Before seeing this kit, I had planned to kitbash and scratch build a building for this location.  One thing I was going to add was a Pike Stuff add-on truck loading kit, but I was able to make use of the truck loading doors on the backside and end with this kit and was able to keep it a little more compact than originally planned.

Not happy with the molded color, I found a Krylon color called Sandy Pebble that is close to beige.

Once painted and assembled I got the details added then I started working on the roof.  I was looking on Google maps for ideas of how to paint the roof and found some on a large local industry here in town.  While studying the images the thought occurred to me that I should try my hand at printing it off and fitting it to the kit.  It took me a bit of doing but I think it turned out OK.    

I built the four rooftop AC units from the kit and then used some larger cast AC units that I found eBay a few years ago.  It wasn't until later after getting these home that I realized what I was looking at.  These are exact copies of the MTL load from a few years ago,  roof top AC units that came on a flatcar, but they worked good for this build.  I also added a bit of ductwork to them for the freezer rooms.

I still need to add a few more details to the building, and will do so once I get the other buildings assembled and sat in place.    

Helicon Focus software

I've known of this software for several years now and have always wanted to play with it.  Now that I've got some photo worthy stuff on the layout, the narrow depth of field really shows up.  So the other night I ordered the Lite version of it.

Last night a I did a couple quick samples to see how it worked?  I took between 12 and 15 shots of scene with different focal points by tapping on the screen of my iPhone then ran them all through the software.  The first two are some of the raw photos, the third is the completed shot which I then touched up with a simple editing software to clean them up.

I think it took less than 10 seconds for the software to do it's magic?  Pretty simple to use to.  This will make my pictures a little more enjoyable to look at.

Here's their homepage:  

https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-focus/

"Next stop: Fordyce, AR"

With Gavilon to a stopping point, I want to move down the line to the next town: Fordyce, AR.  My plan now is to keep from getting bogged down with details like I did with Gavilon, so I will get the buildings built and painted so that I can get the spurs positioned into their final position, then I'll get the scenery roughed in before moving onto the Calion, AR.

This is Fordyce in the rough.

Not a lot of rail activity in Fordyce but there are two larger industries on this portion of the line.  Flapper's (on the left) is a chicken Processing plant much like Tyson's Chicken.  This industry receives live chickens (yeah I know, they mainly come in via truck, but for now, they come in via stock cars as well) at the older original building which will be the slaughterhouse.  I plan to start with the Walthers Water Street Freight Terminal for this building.

Right directly behind the slaughterhouse is a new addition to the plant.  This will be the actual processing house and cold storage facility.  Walthers newest building release should work pretty good for this.  I was planning to try my hand at bashing one of the Walthers Superior Paper kits, but with this new kit, there may not be as much bashing required?  Plus it has two ready made railcar loading doors which is just what the doctor ordered.  If possible I plan to make some sort of a covered walkway to and from the old and new buildings to keep the workers happy and out of the elements.

On the other side of the tracks is another fictional industry that I called Ozark Irrigation.  This industry receives loads of pipe via flat cars in the yard spur and misc small parts via a boxcar or truck dock.  Finished products are shipped out by truck and or rail depending on the order from customers. 

When I seen the Walthers Two Stall 130' Brick Diesel House I thought this might be a good choice due its overall long and narrow footprint for a company who deals in manufacturing irrigation piping.  The Pipes go in the rear of the building raw and leaves out through the front in crates or pallets?  I plan to do some bashing or additions to modernize a bit.

Now we'll see how this goes and how many changes come once I get started with this project.

Gavilon's piping, sticking of the fork

Going to stick a fork in this scene for now and call it done.

There are a ton of small details that can and will be added to this scene, including weathering, signs, people, vehicles, trees, etc, etc.

As much as I love N scale, I've recently been having thoughts of moving to a different scale... but wasn't exactly sure why?  (rest assured I'm not leaving N scale).  I think some of my issues was that some nights I would go down to the basement and see just how much I had to do to the layout (scenery wise) that I would just sit there and stare at it, wondering what to do next, where to start the next project or just contemplate if I would ever get close to finishing it,  and then eventually turn around and go back upstairs.

Sure, a larger scale would mean less to model per scene but the overall space is still the same square footage to fill.  There were other thoughts as well that come with a larger scale but those would have been nothing more than bells and whistles and some extra sugar on top, which held nothing of real interest for me.  

After discussing this with several friends the conclusion that surfaced the most often was that I needed to unfocus on things and step back.  Instead of trying to finish each scene with all the details, I should instead get the scenery roughed in as I have at Gavilon, and then move on to another scene, then when the mood strikes me, or if I get some inspiration or find that perfect detail for a previous scene, then go back and add it.  

On a layout the size as mine (and I do not consider mine to be a large layout), there is still a lot of area to cover and a lot of buildings to assemble.  Which I have come to the realization is not going to be a quick thing if I want the scene and buildings to look presentable and not just a conglomeration of plastic and foam that is hastily shaken up, slapped together then thrown down on the layout in rush just to get the layout finished, which as they always say; "A layout is never finished"   

So my goal now is to try and just get the scenery roughed in, then move on to the next scene and repeat and try not to get overwhelmed with the small details.  A friend recently reminded me of a quote from the late great George Carlin.

So this is where I stand at Gavilon for now.

Next up:  Fordyce, AR....

Gavilon's Pump House

I finally made a decision as to whether or not I was going to load or unload the tank cars at Gavilon. Since this is a smaller distributor of fertilizer, the tank cars would be unloaded.  With that in mind I added a concrete pad next to the siding with two little boxes where the hoses would attach to.

One red hose one black hose?  The siding will hold two tank cars.  I have four storage tanks, so there will be two types of material that'll be unloaded here.  Two of the tanks will hold one type and the other two will hold another type.  Simple.

For the pump house, I looked at scratch building one, looked at using one of the BLMA utility shed, but couldn't find one.  Then I thought what about an old boxcar?  A 50' car was too big, but a 40' looked pretty decent?

So I started out with a WM version that I found.  Doug M. suggested that I install a personnel door on one side and a roll-up door on the other side instead of using the actual car door to give it some character.  I also added a couple of vents to the top.  

Joe A. said to give the boxcar a coat of paint to suggest that Gavilon has tried to keep it maintained due to the equipment that it housed,  instead of weathering up as if it's about ready to fall apart.  But I wanted it aged.  So I first wore down the logo before I painted it with a gray acrylic and then gave it a White Wash to fade it a bit.

Once painted I tried several methods to give the paint a weather worn appearance.  I finally wound up using a medium stiff paint brush and 70% alcohol to slowly eat through the gray paint.  If you look closely you can see the Western Maryland fireball and reporting marks peeking through.

With this done I can now proceeded with some piping to carry the material from the cars to the pump house, then to the tanks.