:hey: Two of my kato europwan high speed traind arrived today the british eurostar and a french one heres a few pics        

Anyone going to enter?

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I'm thinking I'll enter in one of my on the go projects... my U1f kitbash or my Royal hudson kitbash... Should be fun!

Just a thought I felt I should share. About 10 years ago I started building my dream layout after 2 years of planning. It works fantastically. N-guager has seen it and can attest to my claim. I feel it was perfect as it had everything I wanted.
there are 2 hidden yards. one east bound one westbound they are good. I just made some minor improvements to them that a friend suggested. The problem I have is the access tracks to the hidden yards are difficult to get to. you have to crawl under the layout to get to them for maintenance or rare derailments. In 07 I had a stroke. I can no longer get on my knees to crawl. there go the problem and wished foresight. No you can't plan for everything. You can plan on hopefully living to be a senior citizen. who cant crawl any more or reach as far as you used to. how about narrow Isle ways and possible walker or wheel chair in the future.
Just some food for thought. Before you say just start over, I can't and you might not be able to either. Or you may have the perfect layout (for you).
Les (Oh yeah I was only 51 when I had a stroke)

So in my never ending shuffle of railroad plans, I thought of possibly adding in a steel mill to my layout.

Quickie backstory: I bought a Blast Furnace and Coke Oven kit with the idea to somehow add them into the GERN industry area, give it a more industrial look. Then I started thinking why not just add a steel mill to the layout and use these kits for their intended purpose?

So here I am now, goggling around looking for track plans for steel mills, pictures, etc... But unlike most of these sites I find online, they have one thing I don't really have....Vasts amounts space. It seems most people dedicate a LOT of space to their mills. The area I would be putting the mill is about 6.5' long and about 12" deep. So it would have to be small, compact mill in a shotgun (straight line) configuration, with track entering into the area at the right of this area.

So I'm trying to figure out what would the best layout be for the plant? I'm thinking the Mill would contain three buildings: The Coke Oven, Blast Furnace, and a rolling mill. What's you're typical order of operation here? Maybe I don't need all 3 buildings?

I'm still reading up on Mills and what not, but thought I'd ask here to see what some folks who've possibly already modeled a mill would suggest to guide a "mill newbie" along.

Thanks yall.

Hello Everyone---here's a few shots from my hometown---Hamilton Ontario













Thanks again to Doctor Wayne for the time and effort to produce this disc for me

I have a Question about the Walthers Bridge crane: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2906

How do they work? Does the coal barge come in the middle of the bridge crane or park on the side of the bridge crane? In the pic on there website, it looks like the barge parks in between the bridge crane? Are train cars loaded up with the bridge crane or does the bridge crane just take the material out of the barge and put it in stockpiles where loaders load up coal cars?

What about the Hulett Ore Unloader? I was going to do 2 bridge Cranes and 2 Hulett Unloaders working side-by side unlaoding barges at the harbor up the line from the steel mill. Do Hulett Unloaders load directly into train cars or into stock piles?

I really love checking out all the old antique O gauge engines that are out there.
What's the oldest working locomotive you have in your collection?

Mine would be my Marx 666 diecast.
Although "working" is a pretty loose term for that one right now.

Just about exactly a year ago I started work on a CMR turntable kit. No, it hasn't taken me that long to build! It actually is a very nice kit (made of laser cut acrylic) and goes together easily. Believe me, if I can get it together and have it square enough to operate well on the first try, just about anyone here can! But once I had it built to the point where it could be operated, I needed to install it and that required several other things to be done first. My turntable is mounted above the inside space of a helix, so I set up the 3/4" plywood base on sawhorses to mark locations and cut out the hole for the tt and the slots for the inspection pits in the roundhouse. Then the base was mounted in place and it was time to install an indexing system. So a control panel needed to be built and the motoor installed, etc. Once that was done, I had to bring in the lead tracks, which travel over a section that was to be removable for access to yard turnouts for maintenance if (when) needed. Then I realized that the lead tracks went under the coaling tower and sanding tower, and over an ash pit, and none of these structures had been started yet. So all these were built and installed along with the track at my workbench, then put in place on the layout. Which brings me pretty much to where things stand today, with work on the roundhouse about to start, followed by finishing the turntable bridge and detailing. some pics to follow.

Gary

Hey fellers.

I'll be building a small airbrush station as part of the expansion for my new layout. I plan on using a good exhaust fan and filter to keep the fumes and paint dust down.

The question I have is about the exhaust set up. I currently have a clothes dryer duct which runs along the length of one section of my layout. Would it be advisable to tie into this duct or should I have a dedicated duct for the paint station with its own exhaust? A possible fire hazard jumps straight to mind due to the paint fumes and dust particles mixed in with the heat from the dryer, however I was thinking about tying it in at the very point where the exhaust from both "appliances" goes out side. The distance of the dryer from the exterior wall is about fifteen feet. The paint station would be about half that and would have its own duct work right up until the point at which the exhaust goes outside. We are talking maybe a foot at the most. If its a dumb idea just say so and I'll do it the hard way...which is probably the right way and be done with it.

Thanks.

Like Val (Spitfire) i plan on doing a steel mill somewhere in the future. Val has a space of 2'x12' for her steel mill from Walthers. She even pre-ordered all the buildings, your one lucky girl Val

My plans would strictly be a Steel Mill Layout, much like a switching layout, only kind-off compressed all together but just enough to tell the story of how steel is made.

My plans are as follows (this is the layout i have been thinking about for the past 3 nights as i lay in bed trying to fall asleep lol)

Large mine with open mine pit on one side of the room with lots of conveyors and a coal flood loader or 2 to help load up coal trains. Trains would travel down the line a bit to the ore dock, which would consist of 3-4 ore dock kits kitbashed into one double sided ore dock. I would need kits to make it double sided, 2 kits to make it double sided and 1-2 more kits to extend the double sided ore dock. Barges would be loaded by the ore dock and then travel down the layout to the steel mill where they would be unloaded by the Hulett Ore Unloader and Empire Gas Works Bridge Cranes. To separate the ore dock scene scene where the barges would be unloaded, there would be a scenic divider to help with the "further down the line" process of how steel is made.

The coal and iron ore would then be loaded into more coal hoppers, some would go to the Coke Oven & Quencher, some to the Tr-State Power Plant, and some directly to the Blast Furnace. Cars arriving at the Power Plant would be used to power the whole Steel Mill Complex. High Tension Towers would be used to feed the power to the various Steel Mill Buildings (Blast Furnaces/Blower Engine House, Rolling Mill, Coke Ovens, Coke Retorts, Gas Works.....). Coal arriving at the Coke Oven and Quencher would be turned into Coke and then hauled in Coke Cars to the Blast Furnace. The Gas that is produced from the Coke Process would be modeled with the Empire Gas Works Coke Retort, Gas Plant, and Gas Storage Tanks, which would all be located near and around the Coke Oven & Quencher. The Gas would be stored and shipped out via Tank Cars

Once the Coke arrived at the Blast Furnace/Blowe Engine House, it would go through its process, mixing several other materials with the coke, turning into molten steel and being transported via Hot Metal Bottle Cars to the Rolling Mill where it would be poured, rolled, pounded..... into steel products and shipped out on Flatcars, Coil Cars, Boxcars..... The Slag from the Blast Furnace would be taken to an area just outside the Blast Furnace to a large pit where the slag would be dumped to cool.

I do not have any space for a Steel Mill of this size at the time, but i am keeping my fingers crossed for space in the future, of coarse alongside my Modesto & Empire Traction Modules Im assuming it would take a space of about 10x20' to have a good model of around the room layout for the Steel Mill using the Structures from Walthers that they are coming out with and re-releasing. Even though i know that i will not be able to model this industry for quite some time, i still will want and need to buy all the Walthers re-runs and new kits for the future lol

This is what i would like to get:

• 1. (2) Blast Furnaces ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2973
  2. Blower Engine House w/2 Piping Kit to connect to Blast Furnaces ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2957 and http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2958
  3. Rolling Mill ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2971
  4. (2) Coke Oven & Quencher w/Larry and Quencher Cars ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2972
  5. Empire Gas Works Coke Retort ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2910
  6. Empire Gas Works Gas Plant w/Washing Tanks ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2905
  7. (2) Empire Gas Works Gas Storage Tanks ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2907
  8. (2) Empire Gas Works Brige Cranes ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2906
  9. (2) Hulett Ore Unloaders ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2966
  10. (2) Tri-State Power Authorities ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3055
  11. (2) New River Mining Companies ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3017
  12. (2) Coal Flood Loaders ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3051
  13. (4) Ore Docks ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3065
  14. (3) Large Coal/Iron Barges (one for the Ore Docks and two for the Bridge Cranes and Hulett Ore Unloaders)
  15. (4-6) Packs of 3 of Coke Cars ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-3091
  16. (2-3) Packs of 3 of Hot Metal Bottle Cars ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-3133
  17. (2-3) Packs of 3 of Slag Cars ~~ http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-3143
  18. Many coal cars and many ore cars lol