The bright lights of Winnemucca

At the west end of the scenicked area of the layout is Winnemucca, Nevada.  In the era I am modeling Nevada had only a handful of towns with a population of over 10,000 and Winnemucca was one of them.  It sits right on Interstate 80 and has all of the types of businesses that are common along Americas Interstate highways but because it's Nevada there also has to be at least one Casino.

I found this little Miller Engineering sign on ebay which just seemed to be a good fit for a small casino.   This kit is designed so that it could be mounted on a wall or on a billboard frame which was included.

I found out later that there actually is such a sign on Fremont Street in Las Vegas but without the casino part because it was a topless bar.

Next I needed a building that could work for a small casino.  I have had this kit sitting around since the 2000 National Train Show when Bachmann was giving building kits away and decided to use it.

After a bit of work this is what I came up with.  This is most of the lower level of the Bachmann building.  Some windows are covered with posters.  Could not get the etched metal frame for the sign to fit right on the roof so made my own from Styrene strip.  Still need to develop the site for the building.

Re-working the Melarkey Street overpass.

The Melarkey Street / US 95 overpass in Winnemucca is intended to be the western exit from the layout for the Western Pacific line.  From here the line enters the helix down to the staging yard.  This is a common arrangement on model railroad layouts and in this case it resembles the prototype location.    I have used this same setup just a few feet away with the Southern Pacific line exiting under the Interstate 80 overpass.   I have never been entirely happy with the the way the WP track left the layout under the US 95 overpass in Winnemucca.   I suspect this has kept me from really finishing the Winneumcca area.

Here is a view of the US 95 overpass right after I built it back in July of 2017.  It seemed fine then but I had not yet built the sky board.  After the sky board was in place I was not as happy with this arrangement.

Here is what the area looked like after the sky board was installed.  I did not like the fact that the inside of the helix could be so easily seen and the gap between the bridge and the sky board.

So I reshaped the hillside just a bit to align the bridge to be parallel with the sky board and painted the area of the sky board that would be under the bridge flat black.

This view is from the other side of the sky board inside the helix.  Using a scrap of PVC drain pipe I made this tunnel liner.   I painted the inside of the tunnel liner and the bench around it a flat black color.

The track in the foreground is the SP track which enters the helix at the Interstate 80 overpass.

I replaced the bridge columns on the outside with a solid bridge abutment and have started to build a new bridge.

This photo shows how it looks now.  I am patching up the scenery and need to finish the bridge but already like this better.

Diesel fuel distributor open for business

After looking at a few on line photos of tank car unloading I came up with this arrangement for the diesel fuel distributor.

The Chevron diesel fuel distributor in Battle Mountain is now finished and has received it's first shipment of product from the company's refinery in Richmond, California.  I now have an excuse to buy a few more of the right tank cars.