LA Warehouse District Project - Poor Boxcar Storage

I stumbled across the rest of the boxcars I had from Accurail. I sorry to say they didn't survive the storage process very well. I am missing the under carriage for four of these and there are a number of different parts broken, mostly the stirrup steps. I'm unsure of whether I should just consign these to the junk drawer for practice shells or try and fix them back up.

It did give me the opportunity to play around with the new camera (Nikon 7500, my first new Nikon since 2008, essentially replaces my D70 and D90) though, I'm pretty happy with how the pictures came out. Oh the flaws we see under the harsh reality of a blown up picture.

LA Warehouse District Project - Two Potential Plans

I have been messing around with paper, pencil and compass again and I managed to work through the block I was having. First I decided that no matter what else I needed that single signature scene that attracted me to the LA Warehouse District in the first place which was the CF7 emerging from between two buildings with almost no clearance on either side (and there are warning signs to that affect!). Based on the space the only real spot for that was on the left side of the layout (quite appropriate actually) and I used that to determine where things should end up.

I have found two plans that appeal to me quite a bit. The first is Keith Jordan's version of the patch and the second is Scot Osterweil's Industrial switching layout. I modified the Osterweil plan to accommodate #6 switches and 50' cars and placed it more or less in the area of the real Patch. Jordan's plan was much easier to deal with as it is a representation of the prototype. I also discovered that I had both of these plans in a special issue from Kalmbach called "How to Build Small Model Railroads" published in the winter of 2014. That made referencing the two layouts quite a bit easier. Each plan also appears in an issue of Model Railroad Planning; the 2005 edition for the Osterweil's plan and in the 2011 edition for Jordan's Patch.

I'm sure I will dink around with this a bit more but for now I feel like I made some progress.

Based on Osterweil's Industrial Switching Layout

Based on Jordan's Patch Layout. The issue with this is there is room for lots of foreground buildings but that would make it difficult to operate but I would get even more of that "brick canyon" feel.

LA Warehouse District Project - Old Freight Cars Uncovered

Again while rummaging through the HO scale equipment I came across these four 50' freight cars that I had weathered quite a while back. Unfortunately I must have packed the the underframes and the trucks away in a different box. All I have here are the shells. I am still pleased with these early attempts at weathering. I think I have at least one post on how I did it that I'll have to go back and read to figure out what I did.

I also dug up the two CF7s that will be the primary motive power and another dozen or so freight cards from Athearn and Roundhouse that I can work on. I'm pretty certain there is yet another box of refrigerator cars that I had started some work on as well.

I'm going to need to do something about the roof walk on this one.

This one is looking pretty good.

A foreign car that will operate on the layout. The Western Pacific still exists in the time frame of my LA Warehouse District

Another foreign car. This one will be pushing it a bit, I think this Reefer from the Burlington was introduced after the time frame I have in mind. But I like the yellow contrast of this car to the AT&SF ones that will provide the bulk of the deliveries.

The Case Against 1/48th (Edited)

There are lots of opinions around what scale 25/28mm miniatures our especially since manufacturers produce minis that while obstinately are 25/28mm vary greatly in size, proportion and appearance. There is a trend for WWII vehicle kits to be produced in 1/56th scale both in plastic and in resin and I'm throwing my hat into that ring. When I scratchbuild buildings I like to build in a scale and 1/56th is the one I have settled on for my town of Calamity. But even there I don't restrict my self to "scale" parts first because almost nothing is actually produced in that scale and second because why should I restrict myself to a scale when parts from any of the railroad scales will work? In the end if the proportions look good then use it!

I'm actually not trying to fan the flames of the scale wars but I was challenged to provide proof of why I feel that 1/48 is not only to big but way to big to be the "scale" of our 25/28mm miniatures as well as the Heroic versions standing closer to 30mm. I'm firmly in the camp of 1/56th as the best compromise scale. Unfortunately that precludes the use of the the railroad scales at least in the US; 1/64th or S scale and 1/48th or O Scale. 

Since sizes of minis tend to very quite a bit between miniatures I picked out a variety of miniatures to use as examples. They come from Black Scorpion, Reaper Miniatures, Dixon, Wargames Foundry and Knuckleduster. For scale examples I'm using flex track in the following scales and sizes: HO standard gauge, On30 (O scale but narrow gauge using the same spacing as HO), S standard gauge and O standard gauge.

I have also included pictures of the setup I used. My goal was to have the top of the bases that I use (and they are all on the same brand of bases) level with the inside edge of the bottom rail. Then I took a few group shots standing against the track as well as some singles against the O standard gauge track to really show just how short our minis are against it.

Here is the track. Top to bottom: HO Scale Standard (1/87), On30 Scale Narrow (1/48), S Scale Standard (1/64), O Scale Standard (1/48)

The setup using the HO Standard flextrack

Definitely to small for the minis but usable. From left to right; Black Scorpion, Reaper Miniatures, Wargames Foundry, Dixon, Knuckleduster

On30, exactly the same spacing between the rails as the HO standard, only the scale has changed so in this case the distance represents 30" rather than 4' 8 1/2" as it does in the HO shot.

S Scale, getting much closer again the distance between the rails is 4' 8 1/2". I like the feel of this and this is what I would like to use but equipment in S Scale is hard to find and somewhat expensive.

O Scale Standard gauge, they are definitely looking quite short here considering, again, the distance between the
rails is 4' 8 1/2". Only a couple of these miniatures are going to be close or over 5' tall  based on the photo.

All the following are closeups of the miniatures compared against the O Scale Standard Gauge track. Yea, this guy is barely over 5' tall.

Brick Freight House - Starting the Build

The Brick Freight house is the first kit offering from Monster Model & Laserworks. I did a quick rundown through the components and quality last week and mentioned a few minor annoyances with the instructions. You can find that original post here: Test Fit

This weekend I decided to take a break from painting and gaming and get started on this kit. I grabbed my clamps and glue and took it north with me to start the fun.

As anticipated from the dry fit, the kit almost fell together. Well, maybe not fell together, the tabs and slots are pretty tight fits over all. As you will be able to tell from the photos you really can't have to many clamps and I made use of just about everything I had. At this stage the most difficult assembly turned out to be the roof. Since it has a border all the way around the edge this had to be lined up and clamped down with nothing to really line things up against. Then you have to very carefully separate the drainage grates from their sprue. That turned out to be the hardest part of the kit so far. You need 11 of these grates and there are 12 on the sprue. I only managed mangled one of them and that was when I was trying to pick it up to glue it onto the roof.

Some initial paint work was done at this stage as well. I followed the kit instructions for this and grabbed some of my MIG powders and 99% Isopropyl alcohol and went to work. Essentially you are mixing up your own paint and you need to lay it on thick enough to hide the grain of the wood. I think I managed that part pretty well. The next step is to apply a thick layer of dullcote and this is actually going to "frost" the brickwork to create the mortar lines. If the "frosted" effect is to much then you can dab the alcohol back on the surface to restore the color. I only managed to pull off the effect on a about a 1/3 of the model. I haven't gone back with pure alcohol yet to reduce the areas that are to frosted. I'm a bit undecided on how I will proceed with the painting at this point. I didn't have any black paint so the roof remained unpainted at this point. I need to build the optional clerestory for the roof before I go much farther with that anyway.

Over all I made good progress, moving at a moderate pace to make sure everything dried properly before moving on to the next. Fortunately, I live in a dry, high altitude climate and things tend to dry pretty quickly.
Now on to the pictures.

Not in any particular order but these pictures show the bracing being clamped into place.

 

Here the structure is being clamped together.

 Here's a quick test; dry fitting the roof to make sure everything is still square. It is!

And the roof clamped up

 My assortment of clamps. I used them all!

 Lunch time!

And then a couple of hours for everything to set and the brushes come out.
Mmm, this seems to be working.

And the next day after I have applied the dullcote. You can see the deliberate "frosting" effect. I wonder if this is a reaction between the alcohol and the lacquer based dullcote, but then why didn't it work over the entire building?