The Layout..

[Trucklover]

Dan Excellent job on that Peterson's Tool Specialties and the sand/salt housing!! I love them Your layout is really cool, i enjoy seeing random pics like your last one cuz i notice more details everytime

[Dan85]

haha thanks man, hopefully I can get some more equipment and trucks in these pictures!

- Dan

[Spitfire]

Dan, that is one great looking layout! I really like the multiple levels of track.. I wish I had done that with mine. Your buildings are excellent and look very prototypical, and the weathering is very natural looking too.

Keep up the great work, and keep us posted on your progress.

cheers
Val

[LynnB]

The multilevel rail is going to be a lot of fun to run on.

[Puddlejumper]

Bump... for an awesome layout thread!

I love the Ford c cab you built, here is a C cab for ya, they weren't all ugly... http://www.clintonvfd.org/wpg2-2?g2_itemId=2675

I definitely will be watching this thread. Urban scenery and concrete canyons with street running are very interesting to me.

I am a Conrail fan too, if CR had woodchip cars they would have looked exactly like yours!
Nicely done!

Dave

[Russ Bellinis]

But yeah, those Ford C Cabs are neat little trucks, it's been a while since I had seen one on the roads, but that stands to reason with our clean air laws out here. Anyone further east see any on a regular basis?

Until just recently the clean air laws would not have had much effect on the C Cabs. You did not need to upgrade to meet smog laws as long as you were running older equipment. The biggest factor is that as the equipment gets older, and wears out, it gets more expensive to maintain than it is to buy new equipment. In addition, the body and trim parts are unavailable so while keeping a C Cab in good running condition is relatively easy, keeping it looking good and comfortable to drive is more difficult. The Anaheim Union High School District bus repair shop has a beautiful '55 or '56 Ford pick up with a stake bed on it that the bus mechanics restored to use as a parts chaser. The district also has a C Cab that the mechanics restored and put a flat bed with ramps for the lawn & garden service crew to use for transporting their lawn mowers and garden tractors from campus to campus. Those bus mechanics at Anaheim are some of the best restorers/fabricators I've ever seen anywhere!

[RobL]

Dan:

Your scene with the "Peterson Tool Specialties" reminds me of Ohio street heading towards Rt. 5 away from the arena...
Layout is looking good... this long cold winter has afforded us more indoor time that previous winters I think!! Now I just got to get my rear in gear and get more done on mine before the weather breaks (is it ever going to break?!?)

--Rob.

[Dan85]

Thanks for the great comments guys!

I purchased the chip cars at a show and was sorely disappointed when I got home and found out that Conrail did not have any such cars in their line up! Anyways, they were already perfectly color matched, they just begged for CR decals!

Rob I think I know what building you are talking about, it is on the corner of Ohio/Ganson(?) by the lift bridge? I've actually been in that building there - they sell "specialty woods". I had to pick up a truckload of Brazilian Walnut (?) and the stuff is HEAVY.

As for the layout, well, bit of a twist. I disassembled about half of it the other day. Couple of reasons; First I was getting tired of staring at the lack of progress. Second, I was growing annoyed with the layout configuration. Finally, I've just been really unmotivated to work on the layout. I went to the train show in Hamburg Saturday hoping to get a spark on inspiration but it was a no-go. I also tried rearranging the layout, but it took up too much space and was too awkward. At any rate, I graduate in little more than 2 months, and since I will probably be moving I suppose I'm just preparing for the inevitable.

Anywho, I'm going to try to keep accomplishing and posting some little building projects - cars, rolling stock, etc. Another idea I've been tossing around is joining a local club. We have two in our area, Buffalo RR Club and Niagara-Orleans Model RR Engineers. Not quite sure what membership entails, but NOMRE seems to have a modular layout, which if I could work on my own module, I think I would enjoy it a lot more than what I'm currently doing.

Here is the main album if you'd like to see some previous/other pictures

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/Future_Texan/Hobby/My%20Modular%20Layout/">http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y86/Fu ... %20Layout/</a><!-- m -->

- Dan

[RobL]

Dan:

Yup, thats the building I was thinking of... I actually have always thought building a layout based on that area would be quite interesting with the General Mills plant, CSX yard and other smaller industries located over there along with the lakefront.

Hopefully you'll get the spark back and best of luck with your job aspirations after graduation... used to be it was an automatic to leave Buffalo, but now the rest of country is feeling the pain we have felt for the past 15 years, so maybe (unless you really want to leave) you'll get lucky and can stay "home"... what is your career path?

--Rob.

[Steve]

What a sweet layout!
That is some fine work there

[tomustang]

I was looking thru more conrail pics and saw this one, I remembered you pulp cars so I wanted to share.

GP38-2 #8104 leads the Hammerhill pulp train (UHP) coming off the Buffalo Line from Lock Haven, PA, past FW Tower in Buffalo, and onto the main line where it will run south to Hammerhill's mill in Erie, PA. The date is June 26, 1983

[RobL]

Nice picture! I miss seeing the Conrail blue flying up and down the tracks around here! For some reason I just cant get excited about the looks of CSX locomotives... Growing up I lived near a track that serviced a food distribution center, a warehouse, and a printing company... every day after school I'd wait by the tracks to see the CR SW1500 making it's three stops before heading to Frontier Yard.

--Rob.

[tomustang]

Here's another



The description = "Seen here is an ex-Illinois Central Gulf woodchip hopper that Conrail acquired a series of and used in coke service. This group of cars was sold off to CSX in 1994."