After re-reading the replies to the initial post this is what I came up with -a platform for unloading lumber flats.I just realized that the lumber could be put against the building rather than in front of the platform where it is more likely to fall.


I'm also including the bulkhead flatcar that I have been working on. I deceided rather than put a load on it I made it look like a load was just taken off of it.


Enjoy-Bob

Hi Guys,

After reading one of my PC mags i found this useful site to turn your photos, videos, & music into online slideshows

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.capzles.com">http://www.capzles.com</a><!-- m -->

Doctor Wayne recently posted about Adding a cool industry... i.e. ice making and related consumer industries.

Here is an "old school" ice house I got some time ago. This style was often literally "the tip of the iceberg", as they were simply the cover for a largish hole in the ground, which aided in keeping everything cool. Places like this were found near lakes or rivers, from where blocks of ice up to 24"x24"x24" would be sawn in the late winter. They might serve the local community, or be dedicated to one particular use, such as a hotel. The Highland Inn in Algonquin Park would consume something on the order of 1400 blocks of ice during the summers before mechanical refrigeration.

   

Judging by the add-on at the back of the building, power and mechanical cooling may have been added at some point...

   

This ice house was part of a set of cast metal structures. The outhouse and abandoned cabin below comprise the rest of the set.

   

Andrew

An item from the BBC about another success for preservation groups...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8030465.stm...Enjoy...Bob C.

I've been frettin' for some time now that the old Gauge may some day disappear from lack of traffic, and have looked for ways to rescue some of my favorite threads there. I started by copying and pasting the text to a Word document, leaving a few empty lines where the pictures were inserted, and keeping track of which pictures went there....As you can imagine, this was quite time consuming and didn't get through even one of the threads....Last night my son who came up to visit (he's a digital controls engineer and kind of a PC nerd) showed me how in a few minutes' time I could copy the entire thread, page by page, pictures and all..!!

Here's how it's done....

Go to Z, open the thread you want to rescue. On the tool bar, click "File" and then "Save as", and direct it to save in whatever folder you want (I created a main folder in "My Documents" called OLD GAUGE, and a subfolder for each thread, and saved it there.) Don't rename the page when you save it, just use the default name the system uses since it's already got the thread name and a page number. Go to the next page on the thread and do the same...and so on....I copied about 10 threads in a little over half an hour.....

The only down side to this, is that links that were made to the old Gauge do not work if the links were not "updated" after the transfer to the new servers/forum...But something is better than nothing....

So stop "frettin' " and rescue your favorite threads....

Hi guys,

This is where i will be posting my progress on my cement plant module. It will feature the following Walthers Cornerstone Buildings:

1. Valley Cement (1)
2. Red X Cement (2)
3. Blue Star Ready Mix Batch Plant (1)
4. Bulk Transfer Conveyor (1)
5. Black Gold Asphalt (1)

These are what will make up the main structures of the Module. I still have not decided if i will be includeing the Asphalt Plant, it will depend on if i have enough room left over after i add in the second Red X Cement plant lol. All of the structures that i listed above have been sprayed all the same colors and will all be decaled for Blue Star Ready Mix.

All of this will be housed on a module that is 2x8' with 1" blue foam as the base. This makes the module extremely light and easy to handle by myself lol. Central Valley Code 70 track and turnouts will be used on the module.

Here is a brief description of the module before i post any pics, which ill do in the morning, getting late and im getting more and more tired every minute lol.

The Left front of the module will house a massive 24 silo structure, featuring a Red X Super Detailed Silo Structure, followed by the Valley Cement Silo Structure, and then another Super Detailed Red X Silo Structure. The middle silo structure, which is the Valley Cement Silo Structure, will have a conveyor from the roof that travels to the other Valley Cement Buildings which will be located along the back left side and take up about half the back side of the 8' module. Between the 24 silos and the Valley Cement Buildings, there will be 3-4 tracks, one of which will continue down on the middle of the module and lead to the Bulk Transfer Conveyor, which will be located behind the Valley Cement's Bulk Storage Structure in the middle back of the module. Behind the Bulk Transfer Conveyor will be 2 concrete storage bunkers that face each other. Directly in front of the Bulk Transfer Conveyor and the storage bunkers will be the Blue Star Ready Mix Batch Plant. The Asphalt Plant would have to be squeezed in along the front of the module between the 24 silos and the Batch Plant if i wanted it on the module, so we will see

Along the right side of the module, spanning the 2' section would be a large 4-6 lane road. Im thinking of doing the back half of the road with a bridge with a small creek running under it. on the front right side of the module would be the entrance to the huge cement plant for truck traffic. Im thinking i wanna do like a small hill up into the plant, with the entire plant being raised up above the large road, that might be kinda neat. Along the front of the module, between the silo structure and the Batch Plant, and between the Batch Plant to the entrance to the plant, there would be parking for cement trucks and gravel/dump trucks done up with the Blue Star Ready Mix paint scheme.

Now for the final thing i would like to do to the module. I want to have a large concrete bridge that is raised above the plant over the areas that the trucks would be parking, im thinking of having the bridge come in off the front of the module about in the middle, and travel all the way down to the right side of the module, where it would curve and go down the 2' side of the module next to the large 4-6 lanned road. This might be somewhat of a challenge, but it would give me an excuse to start making molds for the concrete bridges i was talking about a few weeks ago to start selling them lol. This bridge would only run along the front of the module, and be a 2 or 4 laned bridge with a K-Rail center divider down the center.

Stay Tunned guys, progress and pics to come soon!!!!

I just had to share this, i picked up a Walthers Cornerstone Red X Cement Plant on ebay a few mins ago for $42.18 shipped!!!!. Some of you may know that this was the deluxe kit version of the Medusa Cement Plant that Walthers released some time ago, and it retailed for $59.98! http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3704 I got mine for $42.18 and it has free shipping, just shows, deals can still be made on ebay every once in a while lol

This will be my second Red X Cement Plant kit that i have now, the last one i think i paid around $80 for it! and that was not on ebay, it was at a online hobby shop that had a bunch of hard to find Walthers Cornerstone kits, and as you can imagine, i went crazy and spent like $600 on 2 Assembly Plants, 2 Stamping Plants, Red X Cement, Guard Shack, Air Filtration Building, and a couple Air Conditioning Unit Kits, as well as a few other random kits from Walthers, all Walthers products that have been since long retired lol, paid pretty much full retail on most of them and a couple of them even more then they retailed for, so they were hardly a deal lol

Man im exited about this, now i can really get my Cement Plant module rolling, it will feature a Valley Cement Kit, 2 Red X Cement KIts, Blue Star Ready Mix Kit, Bulk Transfer Conveyor Kit, and alot of details like conveyors and piping, im really going to go all out on this one lol, sorta like my Assembly Plant Module

Well enough of my bragging lol, Cement Plant Module to come soon, so stay tuned

Hi guys, just in case anyone is interested, i currently have 3 auctions going right now for 3 different structures from the Walthers Modular Series.

Durham Hardware and Iron Company ~~ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...0196086319

Advanced Metal Products Company ~~ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...0197097806

Arrow Refurbishing ~~ http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...0197101207

These are the latest structures i have built, thanks for looking.

Hey Gary, glad to see you made it here. As you can see, this is the way the Gauge should be, and all the familiar faces are here.



Loren

Some of you may find this of interest - a new study estimates $50 billion to update aging rail equipment and infrastructure, and another $6 billion per year to maintain it.

Quote:WASHINGTON - More than one-third of the trains, equipment and facilities of the nation’s seven largest rail transit agencies are near the end of their useful life or past that point, the government said Thursday. Many have components that are defective or may be critically damaged.

A report by the Federal Transit Administration estimates it will cost $50 billion to bring the rail systems in Chicago, Boston, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., into good repair and $5.9 billion a year to maintain them.

Those seven systems carry 80 percent of the nation’s rail transit passengers, making more than 3 billion passenger trips a year. They also include some of the oldest subways and commuter railroads. Some of their facilities date back more than a century.