Building EP Minerals - Part 4

Continuing with progress on the EP Minerals plant.  The final track arrangement was a compromise between keeping the spurs easily accessible and attempting to capture the look of the actual facility.  The final track arrangement does include 3 spurs - one for the loader, one for a storage track, and a third one that runs along the long warehouse for the occasional loading of box cars but can also be used as a storage track. 

With the track installed and painted, next job was installing the wiring, and the turnout linkages.  As this is a removable section of the layout, this was an easy job to do while it is sitting up on the saw horses.

The buildings showed in the last post have started to get some paint.  The loader building got a base made of tempered hard board to increase the vertical clearance for the covered hoppers that will enter it.  A sheet of fiberglass reinforced plastic has been made into a removeable where the rest of the plant can be built at the work bench.

Building EP Minerals - Part 3

In this part, I am constructing some building that will be part of the plant.  The first building is scratch built around a leftover roof from a Kato overhead station.  This roof piece has been sitting around for years and it feels great to finally use it.  In fact, this entire project is absorbing bits and pieces left over of past builds.

The Halliburton barite processing facility in Battle Mountain was built from a Walther's Glacier Gravel kit and I did not use all of it.  This car loading structure is built around one of the larger sections of the Walther's kit that I had left over.

This last building is entirely scratch built from Evergreen styrene.  I had noticed some long narrow buildings in overhead photos of the prototype with a rail spur running alongside of one of them.  In the photo there are covered hoppers parked on that spur but I am going to go with the idea that they could also ship bagged product in the occasional box car.  So this one has one large door and a long loading dock.  The ramp was something left over from the Walther's warehouse kit so I used it here.

These structures just have a primer coat of paint right now.  These will all be getting some finish paint and more details.   Although the prototype site has 3 spur tracks, I've decided my model will only have 2 and am building the turnout I'll need for that now. 

Building EP Minerals - Part 2

This is the 2nd installment of my effort to build a model of the EP Minerals processing plant in Lovelock, Nevada for my layout. This time I am turning my attention to those vertical silos with the angled roofs,  I found another photo of the prototype on the internet that shows these both as a single and as a pair.

I started with 1/2 inch plastic electrical conduit cut at a 45-degree angle at each end.  Then I attached .020 styrene sheet to each end.  While I mostly use Plastruct liquid solvent for styrene-to-styrene bonds, I find that ACC or Super Glue works best on these plastic pipes.  The edges of the styrene ends were cut and sanded smooth with the contours of the pipes.

To simulate the three horizontal ribs seen on the tops of the silos I used .030 x .030 styrene strip. 

The horizontal bands that are noticeable in the porotype photo were done with .020 x .060 styrene strips.  I used a pipe cutter to mark rings around the pipes that the strips could be aligned to.

The strips were first curved by wrapping them around a rod, then attached to the pipe little by little with ACC.  

I ended up making 4 of these silos.  I don't think I am satisfied with the way the legs came out and may redo them.  These will join the other components waiting to be painted.

Building EP Minerals - Part 1

At the west end of the Lovelock expansion section is an industry called EP Minerals which I had introduced to the layout in THIS POST back in October of 2022.  The time has come to actually build a model representation of this industry.  The photo below shows the spot on the layout that this industry will occupy.  It's about 18 inches square which should be plenty of room.  The track shown entering the site is not glued down as I have not decided on a track arrangement yet.  The real plant has at least 3 track spurs and I plan to represent that in this model.

The photo below is from Googlemaps and is a Streetview from Upper Valley Road near where the railroad spurs enters the plant.  What catches my eye in this photo are the rotary kilns and the towers with the sharply sloped roofs.  So those are the features that I will focus on with the remaining parts of the plant being more freelanced.

A photo from another angle shows that there are three of the rotary kilns and I plan to have two of them in my model of this facility.  I did a bit of research on what these actually do and found that they are used in many mineral processing operations.  I am surprised that I have never seen any models of these offered in kit form.  Not finding any kit or 3D models available I set about scratch building these.

Got off to a bit slow start on this.  First tried to wrap .040 x .020 styrene strip around a styrene tube to represent the support bearing rings.  This did not work well so picked up some 1/4 inch and 5/16 inch tube at the hobby shop with the idea that the 5/16 inch could be cut into thin slices to use as the rings.  That was easier said than done.  I had trouble getting a straight cut using my chopper or a hobby knife.  After much experimentation, the method that finally worked was the put the 1/4 in tube inside the 5/16 inch tube, then place a screwdriver in fitting tightly inside the 1/4 inch tube.  Then I used a tube cutter to cut the small rings needed.  The screwdriver kept the tubes from crushing.

So after most of an afternoon at the work bench I got the basis of a pair of rotary kilns.   I will need to make a trip to the hobby shop for some additional materials to finish them but it's a start.

This project will be the subject of several posts over the next couple of months.

Spring 2026 Layout Update

Here are a few of the things that I've been working on in the past few months that have not been otherwise covered in their own posts.  Weathering a few of the covered hoppers that will serve the EP Minerals plant in Lovelock. 

After reading that the RPO cars still ran on the El Capitan between La Junta and LAUPT until 1967, I purchased one for my train.  Also added the two car on set which included an additional coach and baggage car. Full train with 13 cars seen here in a test run before going to the annual setup at Hiller Aviation Museum.

A few more Freight Waybills have been added to the library for inbound and outbound loads.  Distant customers were based on actual industries that I researched using Chatgpt.

Away from the home layout, we had our annual exhibit and the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California in mid April.  This year we again did a combined Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail layout.  With several Ntrak members missing this year due to health and travel reasons, I had to bring all of my modules to this one.  In the weeks before the show I got the pump jacks working on one of those Ntrak modules.

A team track for Carlin

Something that has been sitting in my unassembled kit box for years is this laser cut loading ramp kit from Blair Line.  This was an easy kit to build.  The pieces are quite thin and all of the sections that make up the support structure are doubled for strength.  I used yellow wood glue applied with a tooth pick. 

Once the kit was fully assembled and the glue dried, I set it in place next to the existing spur in Carlin that has been used for transferring chemicals from tank cars to trucks.  While I had originally thought I would use this ramp for the team track in Lovelock, it seemed to me to it fits in here better.

After staining with some diluted Vallejo burnt umber paint, the ramp was glued down next to the track with canopy glue with some paint bottles for weight on it until the glue dried.  Some weeds were planted around and under the ramp.  Later, I may build a concrete ramp for the team track in Lovelock.

Modifying older Atlas trailers

Before we had such a nice selection of accurate N Scale truck trailers, one of the most common types available were generic 24-foot and 40-foot trailer models from Atlas.  These were offered in many road names with either 2 of the 24-foot models or 1 of the 40-foot model either on a 50-foot flat car or by themselves.  Over the years I had acquired a few of the flat cars to get the trailers and once at a train show a bag of 10 undecorated 24-foot models.  Some of these got painted and decorated for various trucking lines using Microscale decals.

These Atlas trailers are decent models but were designed only to be a load on a flat car or parked with the stand down.  If you want to place them on the road behind a tractor, the under frame does require a bit of modification.  The stock under frame has no king pin but it's not difficult to add one.  In this first example a 40 foot trailer is used.

Some of the ribs on the underframe were removed with a hobby knife and sanded smooth.  Then a scrap of .040 styrene was glued to the top side directly above the area where the ribs were removed.  Then a .035 sized hole was drilled through the center between the first and second ribs and a scrap of .032 steel wire was glued into place.

Here's an example of one of these trailers behind an Athearn C cab tractor after these modifications.

The 24 foot trailers require a bit more work.  Not only is there no king pin, but the parking stand is too close to the front end of the trailer to allow clearance for the tractor.

This photo shows the modifications I made to make this trailer work as either a parked or towed model.  The forward section was smoothed, then the styrene block, and the steel wire king pin were added the same as with the 40 ft model.  Then the longitudinal ribs were filed smooth in the area shown in the photo and new holes were drilled for the jack stand assembly.

Here are two of the 24 foot models shown as both parked and towed. Again, an Athearn C cab tractor is being used.

The addition of a Fine N Scale Products cast resin refrigeration unit can turn these trailers in to refrigerated trailers.

Truck trailers for the grocery warehouse

A key visual feature I wanted to create in Lovelock at the grocery distribution warehouse was a large truck loading dock area with trailers parked at the dock doors and also in the lot.  This facility receives products both by rail and truck then ships by truck in company branded trailers.  The trailers delivering products could be from various freight companies but I needed to create some IGA trailers for this warehouse.

Years ago I had a Cannon printer that I got really good decal prints from.  When it died I replaced it with an Epson that I never got as good of results from.  The Epson got replaced last year with a Cannon G5020 but I had not yet tried to print any decals with it.  Recently I had purchased some decal paper that is supposed to be compatible with this specific printer.  So the first attempt was some IGA logo decals of various sizes to use on these trucks. 

I was so impressed with the way these came out I then made another sheet of decals with some trailer numbers and some colorful grocery store related graphics.  Both sheets were sealed with a spray coat of  Krylon Crystal Clear.

I painted and decaled 5 of the old Atlas generic 24 foot trailers models and 1 of the 40 foot models. Got those painted in white after first washing and applying a coat of gray primer.  Then the decals were applied and all the trailer bodies were given a coat of Dullcoat.

In the next post, I will describe what I did to improve the chassis parts to these trailers.

Finishing the grocery distribution warehouse

Gold Medal Models chain link fence was installed around the track side and vacant lot side of the truck parking area.  At that point I had run out of the fence material so planted hedges along the road.  Small bits of static grass clumps were added in a few spots to represent weeds growing through cracks in the pavement.  A few pallets and a dumpster were added and more details will be added later.  This view taken from the back of the bench work when it was removed from the layout.

On the building itself, details were added to the roof which help to break up the repeated pattern of the printed roof.  I used the larger air conditioning units that came with the kit, and added some turbine vents from California Freight and Detail.  I also added some plumbing vents which are styrene rod and a scratch built roof access hatch.

This is how the track side of the building looks.  I added brush around the area from static grass clumps I made myself along with some ready made ones from Scenic Express. 

And here is the finished scene of the truck area.  I knew building this that the small awnings above the truck doors were going to be delicate so I did not add them until almost everything else was done but I still managed to knock one off and can't find it.  If it does not turn up, it won't be difficult to make a replacement.

This has been a rewarding project that I actually started last August.  I'm quite happy with the way it came out and look forward to having the local from Carlin service this industry.