The Los Angeles Terminal Railroad
#16
YAY Kurt is back!!!!! ReallyKurt, I have missed watching your fantastic modelling skills here for these past months....and this looks like it will be a great project so I'm looking forward to following along as you wrk your magic.

Cheers
Gene
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#17
faraway Wrote:
cnw1961 Wrote:... a shortline in Downtown LA would be plausible....
I agree. With a little more luck the industry in south LA might have survived with trackage required like the industry in Vernon and kept their railroad loading docks. Who knows if SP/UP would have established a subsidiary short line to serve that area like ATSF/BNSF did with the LAJ. Or one of the global players (e.g. http://www.gwrr.com/ ) in US short lines would have seen the opportunity and ran the short line.

Reinhard, that is exactly what I thought.

Ed, I found some info on the Ballard Terminal and even a video ob Youtube. Nice little railroad.

Stein, good guess! Wink

Jack, the layout is 12' x 1 1/2' without the removable section on the left. This section is 5' long.

Gene, you are too kind … but I have high hopes for this layout myself. At least I am much more motivated than on my last attempts.
Kurt
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#18
Thanks, Kurt - watching fascinatedly!
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#19
Kurt,Foresight in planning is superior to hindsight after the layout is built.

You may recall I been planning and refining Slate Creek for the past few months and has went from N Scale to HO and after several ideas didn't pan out-not what I was looking for so,I decided N is the only route for Slate Creek due to space limitions-and as it now stands its where I want it to be.The only holdup is do I go with the C80 track I have or should I use C55 ? Either way I will need to buy 2 lefts and 4 right Peco switches and if selected C55 flex track..
Larry
Engineman

Summerset Ry

Make Safety your first thought, Not your last!  Safety First!
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#20
Looks good, Kurt. There is nothing wrong with building and rebuilding. If your main interest is scratch building structures, a relatively small layout will be filled with structures, and once that happens, you have nothing to build unless yo tear out the old and start over! I'm wondering if a single track plan could work for multiple cities? I've seen layout concepts where the same track arrangement was used with structures and details swapped out to make the layout fit multiple eras in the same spot. I'm wondering if a single layout track arrangement could be used to allow swapping out structures to change a location from Los Angeles, to Oakland, Ca, to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, or other city in the Northeast, or even to model cities in the South, or Northwest? Of course then you would need to buy locomotives to match the various railroads you were modeling. An LAJ Cf-7 wouldn't work if the city being modeled was Pittsburgh, Chicago, or Detroit! Such a layout would also allow you to change out structures just like you change train consists as well.
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#21
Brakie Wrote:Kurt,Foresight in planning is superior to hindsight after the layout is built.

Larry, I absolutely agree. Unfortunately sometimes just planning is not enough for me. I have to see the layout (or at least some mock-ups) in person to see if it works out for me. On the last two layouts it did not, so I tore them down before I spent even more time working on them. I am quite sure it won’t happen this time, because I already like this layout much better than all the others I built before.

Russ, I am sure a single track plan could work out for multiple cities. Reinhard is doing it all the time and it works out pretty well. You only had to be careful about ground cover and vegatation, cause these things will give you away. Though I don’t think just swapping out structures would work for me, because I like to see something completely different from times to times. Fortunately that only applies to model railroad layouts … I am married to the same woman for almost 25 years now Goldth .
Kurt
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#22
Usually I use cardboard and sanding paper to build the streets on my layouts, but this time I decided to go for plaster, because I want to have details like cracking asphalt and patches where old pavement is showing through. I poured the plaster for the streets on the right half two days ago.

[Image: la7.JPG]

[Image: la8.JPG]

Then after clearing the flangeways and carving out the streets and sidewalks, I am working on the details now.

[Image: la9.JPG]

[Image: la10.JPG]
Kurt
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#23
cnw1961 Wrote:
Brakie Wrote:Kurt,Foresight in planning is superior to hindsight after the layout is built.

Larry, I absolutely agree. Unfortunately sometimes just planning is not enough for me. I have to see the layout (or at least some mock-ups) in person to see if it works out for me. On the last two layouts it did not, so I tore them down before I spent even more time working on them. I am quite sure it won’t happen this time, because I already like this layout much better than all the others I built before.

Russ, I am sure a single track plan could work out for multiple cities. Reinhard is doing it all the time and it works out pretty well. You only had to be careful about ground cover and vegatation, cause these things will give you away. Though I don’t think just swapping out structures would work for me, because I like to see something completely different from times to times. Fortunately that only applies to model railroad layouts … I am married to the same woman for almost 25 years now Goldth .


There's nothing like building a mock up to see how things look-I use HO Athearn boxes for my Slate Creek mock up.

Slate Creek is generic enough to be "Anywhere USA since I have interest in NS,CSX,Southern,N&W and of course my C&HV and Scioto Rail(owned by CSX/NS).This also leaves me open for another favorite railroad should I decide on buying a locomotive or two.
Larry
Engineman

Summerset Ry

Make Safety your first thought, Not your last!  Safety First!
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#24
Good luck scribing all of that plaster Kurt. Can I ask what tools you use for carving/scribing the plaster, I think the way you cut out those paving stones and curbstones.
My Miami NW 22nd St layout and modelling blog http://dlmr.wordpress.com/ Please come by and leave a comment.
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#25
Dave, I am using a scalpel with a #11 blade to scribe the plaster. I showed how I am doing it here on my last layout thread: <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3895&start=45#p69340">viewtopic.php?f=46&t=3895&start=45#p69340</a><!-- l -->.
Kurt
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#26
That is simply phenomenal. Plaster is the perfect medium for what you are doing. Its's gonna look soooooo good! The sidewalks, curbs, and pavement look great, with all the carved in imperfections. Worship

Questions:

How did you protect the turn-out points from the plaster?

Are you working from photos while carving the plaster?
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#27
Good theme and off to a great start!! Thumbsup
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#28
Hi Kurt

Like all the other contributors who've posted here, I'm extremely pleased to see you back; plenty of great ideas to pinch (sorry) copy Icon_lol and the Patch too - the line that pushed me over to the dark side!!

However, I'm a little saddened to learn that your not building a historical model of the Patch; I sincerely believe you'd have done it justice. Therefore, any chance of changing your mind before you go headlong into the (almost) present day?

Best wishes, anyway, and welcome back.

Jonte
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#29
Gary, I had a close look at the surface of Palmetto Street with Google Street view to see what these cracks and other imperfections look like and then I just carved away hoping it would turn out right.

To protect the turnout points from plaster I first soldered two guard rails to my TO like I saw them in pics showing the street trackage of the Chicago Terminal Railroad. So the points would be protected from one side. Then before pouring the plaster I put pieces of stripwood (flush with the top of the rails) into the gaps between the stock rail (respectively the guard rail) and the point rails. So when I removed these pieces of stripwood after pouring the plaster, only little plaster had to be scraped off to make the point rails move freely again.

[Image: la11.JPG]

To protect the throwbar I glued some short pieces of ties around the throwbar as shown in the next pic. Then I covered the area with .013" styrene.

[Image: la12.JPG]

[Image: la13.JPG]
Kurt
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#30
Very ingenious! I think most of us would be scared to get the plaster anywhere close to a turnout. But you've obviously done enough plaster work to know what you can do with it. That's a good lesson for the rest of us... repeated use and practice with any hobby medium will increase skill and confidence. Before ya know it, you're an "old hand" at it.
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