Glitter Gulch moves to Carlin

Over 5 years ago I modeled a roadside casino in Winnemucca.  It was made from a kit bashed building kit and included a Miller Engineering animated sign.  Here is a photo from that post in February 2019.

Problem with that scene was that it is in an out of the way location and the sign was not very visible to operators and visitors to the layout.  My version of downtown Carlin is somewhat freelanced but based on some buildings that had been there at one time.  I decided that one building would be a casino and moved the sign to this new building.

The building is a Design Preservation Crestone Credit Union kit.  A hole was cut into the roof of the building and a scratch built rooftop structure was added for the electronics that run the sign.  The Miller Engineering sign was mounted on the front of the building over the center 2 second floor windows.

The sign's electronics were mounted to the inside of the roof of the rooftop structure.  The switch on the circuit board sticks out  of an opening on the back so is accessible to turn the sign on or off.

For now the ground floor is empty but the building and it's base are removable so in the future I plan to add lighting and details to the interior.

Spring 2024 layout update

After a long wet winter, spring is finally here.

Some of the layout projects that I've been working on have been presented here as posts of their own but here are a few other things I have been doing.

Finally finishing the GHQ crane kit for the scrap yard in January motivated me to add some final touches to the scrap yard and call it finished,  One of my friends from the Ntrak club I belong to sent me a weathered Golden West gondola to add to my fleet of cars that will service this industry.

After finishing the messy scenery work on the east end of Carlin, I gave the layout a good cleaning and have been returning to operations.  Some additional covered hoppers were purchased for the Halliburton barite processing plant in Battle Mountain including a pair of the new Micro-Trains PS2 models.

Additional car cards for these new cars and more freight waybills for the industries that have been recently added to the layout.

We have already had a couple of Ntrak layouts this year and I had modules in both of them.  The most recent one was at an air museum and included the AsiaNrail extension.  This layout was set up for 4 days. 

And I have been continuing to work on structures in Carlin and will be posting on some of that work individually in the near future.

A microwave communications tower

The Southern Pacific Railroad was an early adopter of the use of Microwave communications in it's operations.  During my modeled eras this would have been in use with microwave relays on many mountain tops along the line and towers at important stations.  I wanted to include this on my layout and decided that the operations center at Carlin yard would be an ideal place to start.

To make the microwave antennas I punched a bunch of disks from .020 thick styrene scraps.  Then stacked them together until I got the thickness I wanted.

For the tower itself I had originally planned to use the kit from BLMA but those are no longer available. Then I remembered I had an old Miniatronics light tower from a past layout that had burned out lights and one of the shades missing so I used it.  This tower is about 40 scale feet tall.  The existing plug in structure on the bottom was used to secure the tower to a styrene tile base.

The tower actually looked better with the lights removed as the wires filled the inside and now the tower in more see through.  The middle two vertical supports at the top of the tower were cut off. The disk stacks got a .035 hole drilled into one side and a .035 styrene rod cemented into that hole.  That rod fit nicely into the existing holes on the remaining outer vertical supports and that is how the disks were mounted to the tower.  A small equipment cabin was scratch built out of styrene and glued to the base next to the tower.

Here is what the assembly looked like after a bit of painting and weathering.  I also added a radio antenna on the top of the tower.  This would be for the VHF radio communications between the operations center and road crews and MOW crews.  For antennas like this I use cat whiskers.  We have 4 cats and every once in a while, I find a fallen whisker on the floor while cleaning house.

And here is the Microwave relay tower installed on the layout next to the operations center building in Carlin.  I scraped away a bit of scenery and glued the tower base in place.  When the glue had dried, I touched up the scenery around the tower base. 

This was another one of those little scratch building projects where everything came from the scrap box that I enjoy doing.

Improving some Wiking VW models

A quick break from the structure building posts to work on some vehicles.

I have a bunch of old Wiking models of Volkswagen vehicles that were given to me by a friend years ago when he tore down his layout.  These models have great accurate bodies and solid clear plastic windows but lack any type of realistic paint detail, particularly on the tires.   Because of this I have never really used them on any of my layouts or modules.  The beetles and vans in particular were quite common in the 1960's and 70's so I decided to get some of them out and do something with them.

These models come apart easily.  There are just 3 parts: The chassis in a silver or gray color, the body in various colors, and a solid clear plastic part to represent the window glazing.  After getting these apart, I painted the tires black with Mission Models tire black acrylic paint.  When those had dried, I painted the bumpers with Model Master silver acrylic paint.

For things like hubcaps, headlights, tail lights, door handles, etc. I use Sharpie pens. These are available in an assortment of colors.  This can be done either before or after re-assembling the vehicle.  I store the pens in a zip lock bag in an effort to keep them from drying out.

These now look much more realistic and I am happy to have them on the layout.  I just did these two for now and still have quite a few more.  Next batch I want to try painting the bodies in some colors I remember seeing and with the van getting a two-tone paint job with the white on top which was common.

Finishing a 3D printed house

This 3D printed house is something I purchased a couple of years ago along with two others.  All three are based on the design of the Sears catalog houses of the early 1900's.  The one I am finishing here was the largest of the three and I intended to use it to house the speaker for the grade crossing in Carlin.  This particular house had a total of 5 pieces, there shown in the photo below after they had been sprayed with primer.  There was also a base and a small roof section not show here.

This is what it looked like after painting.  The small roof section is also present in this photo.  Painting these is similar to painting a Design Preservation Models (DPM) building.  I started by air brushing the base color then brush painting the trims and any details.  On this model I painted the chimney and the foundation walls a red brick color.  

There had already been a base prepared for this scene made from fiberglass reinforced plastic paneling.  Here is the completed house glued down to the base with a car port and other surrounding details being added.  The wire and plug sticking out on the right side of the base is for the grade crossing speaker. 

After installing the fences and more details at the work bench here is the completed scene installed on the layout into a recessed area that is surrounded by styrene strip with the scenery built up around the outer edges.  I still want to add a tree or two and that or other changes will be easy as this entire scene is removable. 

Finishing a re-cycled fire station

On my last layout which was from 2002 to 2013 I had a California Department of Forestry fire station which I built from a Rix Products kit.  If I had taken any photos of it on that layout I can't find them now.  When researching things for this layout I found that the fire station in Carlin was of a similar design but with an extra door.  Since I still had the old model, I decided to use it again on this layout but with some upgrades.

One of the things I wanted to be able to do with this structure was to pose each of the doors either as opened or closed.  The solution I came up with was to use Velcro on the back of each door and on the inside of the roof of the building to store the doors when they are open.  The fit of the doors into the wall is snug enough that they don't need any glue to stay in place.

The building sits on a removable base that has blocking of styrene strips around the inside of the walls that hold the building in place.  The building can be easily picked up to change the position of the doors or move around the fire engine models.

Some of the details added were rain downspouts made of .035 styrene rod added at each corner of the building and some signs that were made on the computer and printed on paper.  I only have a couple of fire engines right now representing different eras but plan to add more in the future.  As the layout is modeled in different eras from the mid 1970's to mid 1990's I plan to have at least 2 set of fire equipment that can reflect those different eras.

Building the propane dealer - Part 3

With all of the detailed piping done on the base and with the chain link fence installed around the perimeter, the base was ready to be glued into place within the styrene strip borders.  That area in front of the tanks will get some additional N Scale ballast gravel to blend it in with what is on the base.

As mentioned before, the office building that came with the kit was used in another area of the layout as it would not have fit in the area I had for this facility.  Turns out that the prototype facility that this model is based on has this modular trailer as an office and I wanted to include something similar in the model scene.

This is my scratch built version of the office trailer.   The prototype is estimated to be 50 feet long but I compressed my model to 40 feet.  The structure itself was made from Evergreen styrene sheet and strips.  The roof vent was a cast resin piece from California Freight and Details, the office door was from Tichy, and the steps were made from Plastruct stairs.

Here is the scene with some details added.  The ladders were made from Plastruct ladder stock, the barriers and trash can are 3D printed models I purchased and painted.

The spare customer tanks came with the kit.  They were in two halfs and required a bit of modelers putty, sanding, and painting to get them to look right but do add something to the scene.

Here is the entire lineside industry ready to go to work.  Just need to add one of two propane delivery trucks.

Building the propane dealer - Part 2

As this is a bigger project, I am presenting it more than one post.  This is part 2 of what will be 3 parts.

The larger building from the Walthers Cornerstone Central Gas & Supply kit had already been used as the Southern Pacific Operations office in Carlin.  The two smaller buildings and the pair of storage tanks from the kit were assembled so it could be determined how they would fit in the area that I plan to place the industry.  Once that was determined, a base was cut out from a sheet of .040 styrene.

Using the base as a guide, a border of .040 x .060 styrene strip was glued to the layout deck so that the .040 height will match the height of the base.

The base with most of the more delicate piping components was then assembled at the work bench.  When finished, it can then be installed on the layout as a major sub-assembly.  As my layout of the components was quite different than the stock kit, much of the piping was cut apart and re-assembled to fit.  I also used some of the Plastruct plastic coated wire in some areas.  Once the layout of the tanks and small structures was confirmed, styrene strip borders were added to lock in the locations.  Then a layer of N scale ballast for gravel was applied.  When the gravel base had dried, the tanks, small buildings, and pipes were installed.

The scenery was built up around the outside of the .040 x .060 styrene strip borders.  This view shows where the base will go.  There will also be another .040 styrene base to the right of it that will also be part of this industry but will be built in place as it will not have any delicate piping to deal with.

Gold Medal Models chain link fence was installed around the perimeter of the facility.   Holes were drilled along the styrene border strips using the hole guide that is part of the fence kit.  Canopy glue was used to secure the fence in the holes.  The part along the front edge will be left open suggesting that the facility extends further out. 

The tank car unloading and delivery truck loading area was scratch built using various bits of things I had laying around the work bench.  On the fence near the spur track, I painted an .010 by .020 styrene strip silver and glued it about 3 feet from one of the fence posts suggesting a gate.  As the spur track is outside the perimeter of the facility, workers would need a way to access a tank car and this gate would do that.  

End of Part 2.

A crane for the scrap yard

 I wanted a small crane for the scrap yard in Carlin.  GHQ makes a pewter kit of a Bucyrus-Erie crane and I've been happy with how my other GHQ kits came out so I ordered one.

I was not sure if this was going to be realistic for the era of my layout but after seeing an on line advisement for a 1965 Bucyrus-Erie model 30B I knew it would be a good fit for the 1970s / 1980's.  The GHQ model is a 30B.  This photo also serves as a good reference for painting.

The most difficult part of this kit for me was the boom which is made from etched brass.  It was folded as directed in the instructions then any seams were soldered.  Some smoothing with a jewelers file was necessary afterward but I prefer that to trying to glue it.  Afterward the cast pewter top was glued into the square hole at the top of the boom.

I wanted to be able to rotate the crane cab in relation to the track assembly, so I cut the small guide pin off from the bottom of the cab and drilled and tapped a hole for an 0-80 screw.  Another hole was drilled through the small hole in the track assembly.   The stock kit did not leave enough clearance for the cab to rotate over the tracks and the cab seems to sit low compared to the prototype photo, so I glued a #6 washer in place as shown in the photo.

On to painting.  For the yellow of the cab I used some Floquil signal red then when it had dried I masked it off and sprayed the top half of the cab with Floquil ATSF yellow.  Both of these paint bottles are quite old but still worked great in my air brush, I sure miss Folquil paints. The track assembly, the boom, and the cab floor were sprayed with Model Master pale green.

The prototype photo I used in this post did not have the logo or model number but in other photos either one or both are evident, so I decided to add that to this model.  Decals were made which included both the Bucryus-Erie logo and the model number.  After the decals were set, the sub assemblies were sprayed with Dullcoat.  The cab and cab floor were super glued together and then attached to the track assembly with the screw. 

The boom was glued into place with super glue and some black thread was used to simulate the various cables.  I ran the thread over a wax candle before installing it.  This helps to keeping it from getting a fuzzy look and also makes it a bit easier to work with.  I made my own electromagnet boom from one of the hook parts that came with the kit, a styrene disk punched out with a hole punch, and a #6 washer for weight.  I plan to set the bucket part that came with the kit off to the side to indicate that the scrap yard also uses that on occasion.

Building the propane dealer - Part 1

In the actual Carlin, Nevada there is a rather large rail served propane dealer.  As shown in this Google maps satellite view it has 10 storage tanks, 2 spur tracks, and covers an area of about 650 feet x 200 feet.  This facility is about 1/2 mile east of town.

Here is a Google street view image of the facility from Chestnut Street.  Some of the details spotted in this view are the chain link fence with barbed wire on the top, the large tandem trailer delivery truck, and the trailer used as an office.  The storage tanks are just visible in the far left.

This is the area I have on the layout for my representation of this propane dealer.  This is on the extreme east end of the layout and has an overall area of about 290 x 55 scale feet including the spur track.  I don't want to overcrowd the scene so I will need to do quite a bit of compression.

Surprisingly there are not many options available for this type of industry in N Scale.  Plastruct offers a kit with the tank shapes and materials to build a customized facility and there is the Walthers Cornerstone Central Gas and Supply kit which is what I am going to use.  To be continued....