SP's East Portland "Produce Row"

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Love the dirt! NOW it looks like a layout!

[pdx1955]

Vegetation  is spreading with the addition  of grass, blackberry  vines, shrubs and trees!

[pdx1955]

Brambles and grass are now in on the Steel Bridge embankment  and got the grass in along the river. Still need to add bushes and scrub along the shore appropiate for the time. Also , continued on adding road shoulders , embellishments  to make flat areas not so flat and other details  with Sculptamold in other places.

[MDW]

Ballast & Dirt - Check
Grass & brush  - Check
Trees - Check

Ready for that Willamette a river pour!
Looking good, Peter


Michel

[pdx1955]

Ballast & Dirt - Check
Grass & brush  - Check
Trees - Check

Ready for that Willamette a river pour!
Looking good, Peter


Michel

Yep, it's about ready for the water and I'll do that later this spring or summer  when it's warmer so it will take less to time to cure and so I can open the garage door  to let out the fumes. I also did get the approach  track to the wharf in, so the next step  there is  to lay the rails, attach some feeders and paint the track before planking.

[pdx1955]

Tonight, I added  more riverbank vegetation  with a number of bushes, shrubs, and an assortment  of brambles and blackberry  vines. I also added a bit more to the bottom of the slope coming down from the highway bridge  in back.

[pdx1955]

What was bare land has now sprouted houses and garages ready for the rest of the surrounding  land  and lots to be completed .  Scale denizens  are already moving in...a Mr. Foxx and his family in the white Cape Cod house with a Mr. Smith across the street . Both spend a lot of time in their basements doing who knows what ...

[pdx1955]

Well, its been awhile since the last posting . The new promotion has kept me pretty busy and making me not want to work on a lot of things. I did build the rest of the commercial structures for this area (in the blank area on the last photo) including a RLW diner kit I got over 20 years ago! Also picked up a WS substation to go with the powerhouse (you can see it on the far right).



In other news, I've been debating and finally pulled the trigger and decided to convert this into a smaller footprint using T-trak modules. I started the ball rolling a few months ago with a new folding table purchase at Costco and just got notice that the module kits are enroute.

All is not lost , I created a new plan that actually will be point-to-point but I can slap on a pair of my NP corners and do a full orbit of the L-shaped plan if desired. Even as a loop it will facilitate "transfers" between the SP & NP so I can preserve most of the operations. I still figure that 90+ % of the built structures will be reused in some fashion including the wharf, the ship, and the bridges. I'm only going to use Kato track (painted and ballasted) on the end caps and transitions - everything else will be Peco recycled from the layout. Signals, control boards, Digitrax elements, etc all will come over. A lot of the extra stuff and about half of the fleet will be jettisoned over time as this gets figured out.

 I got the inspiration from joining together permanently two junction modules which will be paired with a classfication (Brooklyn Yard) yard on the other side of the backdrop - I figure that the whole yard ladder will almost drop into the new location for example. Things will be smaller, less street trackage for example, but there still be some. One advantage of the junction module is that I can make the SP main look like its swinging onto the Steel Bridge to cross the river in more realistic fashion as there is a 90 degree corner involved in the model and the prototype. I look forward to making this new adventure a reality - and banish the need to crawl under benchwork wiring up detectors and the like forever - just flip the module on its side.

[pdx1955]

And so the transformation begins with the arrival of the module kits today. Also been acquiring the basic track needs and other base supplies shown. I don't consider this a total redo, it's a repacking of  this concept into something that works better for me moving forward.

[pdx1955]

The conversion to modules is slowly ongoing. All of the modules are put together including the custom length ones. Here's the new Brooklyn Yard module with the original layout yard backdrop added.


Here's some testing of building locations on an end cap.

[pdx1955]

This afternoon the tracklayers got to doing their work. Got the track firmly attached to the yard terminal and industrial end cap modules and the Kato connector tracks to the yard module. Cork is down for what is the main and the arrival/departure track. Next is surveying out the yard tracks and engine terminal areas.

[pdx1955]

In an act' of serendipity,  in mocking things up tonight,I found that my original Holgate Avenue overpass bridge will fit perfectly along with the built up abutment and backdrop section in the new location. This also allows for future extensions of yard capacity or staging in the future. To quote Hannibal Smith, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh man, I love when that type of thing happens.

I had to take my old Interstate 83 overpass to the table saw.
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[pdx1955]

In this afternoon's noodling, I found that my 3-track "water heater" staging yard will just drop in between the two main modules without taking any extra room. Since one module is made up of deep modules with the main to the front and the other is mostly made of junction modules with the main in the back, their is a wider space in between. With a sneak off track under a highway bridge, this yard can perform the exact same function on this layout as the old - having trains coming in from the south and west the ability to feed the yard and vice-versa. This will also keep my car order operational scheme intact.

[pdx1955]

I managed to remove in one piece the entire Brooklyn yard and plopped it down to fit. With a little shift, it looks like I can retain four class tracks, the MOW track, and the shop stores track on the right. I spent a good portion today figuring if the turntable will fit in the space and it does with a slight mod to the base mounting and will fit vertically in the module with the gearbox and motor drive. More playing around with track parts allows for a long enough service lead, caboose track, and sand/fuel supply track. The four stall roundhouse will fit on the end cap.I figure I can attach short unitrak pieces across the joint and snap the stall tracks in assuming that they stay loose for this to happen. It's pretty compact but similar to the previous arrangement and allows enough room for the necessary support structures like sheds, outbuildings, and tanks.