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Idea for a prototype on a door Dream and design
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Regular poster 262 posts dkerber123 Regular poster 262 posts
dkerber123
When doing research on California short lines and branches, I kept getting drawn to the industrial area served by a UP local in my home town of Madera, Ca. I settled on the California Northern, but seeing the local in town most days keeps my interest. I had sketched out plan for the majority of this branch but due to certain elements, I decided against modeling it. Yesterday I was at Lowe's buying two hollow core interior door blanks for the double sided backdrop that will run down the center of my peninsula. While carting the doors to the register, I kept thinking about Lance Mindhiem's book, "How to build a switching layout" and how he basically used a door and three switches (turnouts) to make a pretty cool switching layout. I went to Google Earth and tried to find an area of the CFNR suitable to model on the size of a 24"x80" hollow core door, but nothing really stood out to me. I went back to my home town and revisited the UP industrial branch, called "The Winery Spur". The following photo is the GE image of a spur serving TPI (a feed company), a food processing equipment manufacturer, and an unoccupied warehouse. Almond Ave (road at the bottom of screen) would be the lower part of the layout and lead to a removable staging track. The buildings could be modeled as halves and the outer edges tied into the facia. The prototype uses four axle GP units ranging from UPY GP15-1's to HLCX GP 40's. I remember in '07-'08 is they used a Rio Grande GP40-2, prior to that I'd seen SP power and any 4 axle UP power. That last few months they have been using two HLCX GP 38-2's. TPI gets covered hoppers with grain and outbound product ships in boxcars. I'm not sure if the food processing equipment plant is rail served or not, but at one time it was. A plant like that could see box cars and maybe raw steel loads. The warehouse could be some sort of Ag related business or a cold storage to get some reefers (use your imagination). I probably shouldn't ADHD on my CFNR project to build this, but it would be fun for exhibitions and outdoor photo shoots. photo 98380788-0D3B-47ED-BFF3-BCFF0093D9BA.png I'll add some photos I took of the local leaving town back in December 2013 in a subsequent post.

My blog documenting the construction of the CFNR West Valley Sub in HO scale http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/16315

 

Dan
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dkerber123 Regular poster 262 posts
dkerber123

Power

photo 28DEB248-4105-47CF-B0FD-CB9BF5AF66AD.jpg photo 329CC02E-9FA1-4F8A-B853-A1350F9F3BFF.jpg

My blog documenting the construction of the CFNR West Valley Sub in HO scale http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/16315

 

Dan
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dkerber123 Regular poster 262 posts
dkerber123

Freight

photo D419FB69-5262-48EC-95EC-20FEFC46F0D5.jpg photo 9499D0CC-F666-44EB-8162-A45F1396FC4C.jpg photo 3839B2CA-A681-460C-9445-F4AFDC0D678E.jpg photo 5E7FD309-CA7A-4D74-8D52-4137807752F1.jpg photo DA391498-D491-4BA1-8E5B-2975062BDE9D.jpg photo 9C72C632-5E21-4502-9CFB-1AFCB3FE92CA.jpg

My blog documenting the construction of the CFNR West Valley Sub in HO scale http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/16315

 

Dan
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Bremner Prolific poster 1,217 posts
Bremner

looks fun

I like the idea, another one would be to buy a 36" bi-fold door, so you can have 2 18" wide doors

am I the only N Scale Pacific Electric Freight modeler in the world?

https://sopacincg.com 
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dkerber123 Regular poster 262 posts
dkerber123

Two doors....

...could allow two more industries. One could stretch out the first section and add the elements below. The spur on the right is for Carris Reels and sees loaded centerbeams. The spur on the left serves Euro-Drip USA and gets chemical tank cars spotted. It would pack a lot of action in a small space. photo 3405076B-236D-4125-8B3B-8B3E65AFD30B.png

My blog documenting the construction of the CFNR West Valley Sub in HO scale http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/16315

 

Dan
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dkerber123 Regular poster 262 posts
dkerber123

Back date

It could also be back dated to the 90's and one could run SP power with non-tagged rolling stock.

My blog documenting the construction of the CFNR West Valley Sub in HO scale http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/16315

 

Dan
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