Finished Cornerstone's Reefer Icing Platform and Ice House and Started the Johnstown Industrial Track

 

The title kind of says it all doesn't it?  The Cornerstone Ice House and Icing platform is a pretty simle kit and took maybe half and hour to put together. I went with Krylon "Meringue" for the walls, Floquil "Roof Brown" for the doors and wood work and Floquil "Grimy Black" for the roofs.

The ice house itself has no windows, so there was no need for lighting. However, the guys on the platform would probably want to see what they're doing at night, so I installed a pair of LEDs under the platform roof.

Now, in case you're wondering what this structure is used for, here's a little history lesson. Back in the days before mechanical refrigeration, reefers had  bunker at each end of the car that was packed with ice, loaded through hatches on the roof. Periodically, the cars would have to be re-iced. This will give the crew of the Johnstown Local something more to do.

 

Work has also begun on the Johnstown Industrial Track. It forks off the inside loop just after the crossover at the beginning of Johnstown. It serves the aforementioned ice house, Water Street Freight Terminal and will serve Superior Paper. Between this, the yard and the South Fork Branch, The west end of the layout should keep several crews busy for a while.

Illumination!

I took on yet another project I've been dreading, lighting the buildings in the along the wall section from Cassandra to Johnstown. Longtime readers of this blog know of my distaste for wiring, so you'll understand the foot dragging.

In terms of procedure, there's nothing special to report here, just drill the hole, feed the wires and hook them up. All the lighting is LED.

In other news, I've ordered a bunch of flex track and turnouts for Johnstown, so I'll hopefully get going on that by the end of the week. I realized I had room for one more big industry, so I decided to include a kit I'e always wanted but never had room for, Cornerstone's "Superior Paper."

Making a Scene in Johnstown

 

This afternoon, I got lucky and both kids went down for their naps at the same time, leaving me a nice chunk of modeling time. In that time, I decided to finish the beginning of Johnstown. The fist thing I did was stain the rocks (I painted the mountains the previous night). Once that was done, I applied the lichen.

The the mountains themselves finished, I ballasted the main lines up to the crossovers and the short remaining section of the South Fork Branch. The latter is now ballasted for its entire length. I finished things off by adding some turf and talus to the bases of the mountains. Not bad for two hours.

I supposed my next step is to start finalizing the track work in Johnstown and finishing the scenery.

Phone System Upgrade, Scenery and the V&R Railroad

With summer over and the craziness of Thanksgiving behind us, I finally felt ready to get back to work on the layout. I know I haven't been posting nearly as frequently as I used to. Part of the reason is the demands of having a two-year-old and an infant. On top of that, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year and as such spent all of my spare time in November writing. But now, I'm finally back in the saddle.

The first thing I did was upgrade the phone system. As mentioned previously, you could pick up two phones and talk but there was no way to make them ring. To solve that problem, I ordered a device called a Private Branch Exchange or PBX. I got it for about $60 off Amazon. It allows you to connect up to eight phones. Now you pick up the phone, dial the extension you want and the phone rings. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to add a phone system to the layout, this is the way to go.

Another project I'd been dragging my feet on is building the mountains at the entrance to Johnstown. Plaster is a lot of work, I just didn't feel like doing it. I finally sucked it up and did it. I then used patching plaster to create rock outcroppings.Now the mountains need paint and the rocks need stain. A friend of mine (Hi Jess!) told me I should "Bob Ross it up," so in that spirit I'll "put some happy lichen trees" on there. Once all that's done, I'll ballast the track.

 

One more reason I've not made much progress on the Pittsburgh Division is, it's no longer the only layout in the train room. I brought some of my old O-Gauge equipment back from my parents house and whipped up the V&R railroad. It's name for my kids, Victor and Rosalie. 

The layout consists of two loops of Lionel tubular track. The curves on the outer loop are O-54 and the O-31 on the inner. The O-54 is great for my son whose idea of operation is to hurtle the trains around at top speed. The train on the outer loop and can hold the rails while the train on the inside usually goes careening off.

Scenery was dead simple, a few cotton snow blankets from the dollar store, some snow trees and ceramic houses I had laying around and that was it. Right now the layout is on the floor, which works  for my kids at the moment, but ultimately, I'd like to mount it on plywood. 

So that's all for this update. I'n the coming weeks, I'll be building a Cornerstone Ice House and laying more track in Johnstown. Stay tuned.