I am in the process of scratchbuilding a Flour Mill to extend the Silos at South Forest and converting it into an industry that has freight coming in and going out. This means that when the flour mill is completed the silos will receive wheat instead of flour. Flour would become an outbound commodity instead of an inbound one to the silos / flour mill facility. This will add extra interest to operating the South Forest Locals. I might add a box car load of flour from the Flour Mill to Midwest Foods - this would be the only traffic that has both it's origin and destination on the C&SFT
.
I have cut a baseboard for the new building out of masonite, and plan to build the building out of masonite and balsa wood, and a few leftovers from previous kits I have built. The basic plan is to have the walls decorated with brick paper, and have a corrugated roof. There will be a few windows as well.
RE: Changes at South Forest
Your comments have me thinking of a couple of things. First, scratch building a structure sounds like it would be a lot of fun. I have rarely constructed a railroad to a point where I need structures, so for me, building a structure is a whole new experience. The second thought is about operations. A car that originates on the railroad and has a destination on the railroad is a new way of thinking. I have always worked it that a car must "leave" the railroad and travel to other parts of the system before returning to a modeled destination. This type of car movement will force the local crews to be on their toes! I like it!
Take Care,
Scott
Re: Changes at South Forest
Thanks for your comment, Scott.
My current layout has a number of scratchbuilt / kitbashed buildings. When I started the current layout I found I could not get the sorts of structures I wanted to fit the spaces available, so I started scratchbuilding. Another factor was that I didn't want to spend a lot of money on kits, so I used what was available - chipboard, masonite, etc, and then purchased some inexpensive balsa wood. This has become my normal way of scratchbuilding, and it's inexpensive.
Regarding operation, because my layout is a 'shortline' industrial railroad, I originally felt it might be stretching reality a bit to have a car delivered from one industry to another when they were so close together. So I tended to have cars interchanged from other railroads as the main source of traffic to and from the C&SFT
. But I have had a bit of a rethink of that recently, especially after reading of examples of industries that were close to each other and used rail for shipments between them, and felt it would be OK to have 1 or 2 commodities that have their origin and destination on the C&SFT.
James
RE: Changes at South Forest
So don't you ever get the itch to watch trains run? By that I mean let them run on a continuous loop? I love the idea of an out-and-back railroad or a industrial switching railroad, but part of me still gets hung-up on the "gotta have a loop to run trains in a circle" feeling. It has really been a big stumbling block for me. It has kept me from starting construction of the next railroad.
Can you help? Any thoughts?
Scott
Re: the Itch
I don't really have an itch to run trains continuously and watch them.
I had thought on the odd occasion that it would be nice to link up the ends of the layout, and make a continuous loop, but then it would spoil the effect. This is the first point to point layout I have built. And when I started building it I wondered whether it would hold my interest. But of all the layouts I have built this is by far the most interesting to operate. I have discovered since building this layout that for me it's the switching and operating of trains from one point to another that really interests me. So much so that when I operate on the continuous loop layout of a friend of mine whose layout is 35 x 15 feet in size and when I run trains at exhibitions with the local club, I prefer the yard work and local out and back runs to the mainline through freights!
Regards
James