The last structure to be added to the model Great Western Loveland yard is the beet pulp warehouse. The warehouse received beet pulp and molasses from the factory. The pulp and molasses were pelletized and stored in bulk bins and burlap bags until it was needed.  The pellets were shipped in covered hoppers and box cars to feed mills for cattle feed.

The penultimate structure to be added to the model Great Western Loveland yard is the wet hopper used to unload beet cars, usually hopper cars or drop bottom gondolas.  Since there are no commercial HO model kits even remotely similar, I needed to challenge myself and scratch build it.  The comments below show the process and the current status.

It’s been a long time coming but I finally “lettered and numbered” my Great Western steam engines.  Many thanks to William Brillinger of Precision Design Co. (www.pdc.ca)for the decal artwork and decal sheets. He did a fantastic job on the artwork and his decals are excellent quality. Also thanks to Jeff Shultz for a posting some time ago that pointed out that Bill does custom decals. The rest of the story is in the comments.

Update: I wasn't happy with the "point&shoot" photos so I redid them with my SLR.

People who visit my layout often mistake me for a “serious” model railroader.  While I may be enthusiastic, eager, enthralled, happy, engaged and other positive attributes, I am not entirely serious.

I often have fun placing humorous or disconcerting elements in various scenes.  As I have said before, I amuse myself sometimes. 

I invited five members of the Medford, Oregon “Rogue Valley Model Railroad Club” to attend an operating session on January 8, 2017.  It was a very successful operation so I thought I would document it with photos of the action in the next comments. Sorry, no video.  

While procrastinating over making repairs to the layout after a disastrous operating session in May, I decided to update some scenery and add some structures to areas that were mostly, well, blank.  Here are some quick shots of some of the work.

George Booth
Director of Everything, The New Great Western Railway
http://users.frii.com/gbooth/Trains/index.htm

My Great Western website hasn’t been updated since 2012.  I guess I’ve been too busy modeling and operating to spend much time on the computer (except to read all the excellent postings here).  I’ve been corresponding with various people and have gotten tired of apologizing for no updates.

The silos are a major landmark for the Loveland Great Western beet factory as well as Loveland itself.  They are huge – 200’ tall with eight 40’ diameter storage silos.  The machinery tower on top of each silo quad proudly proclaims “GW”.  Great Western sugar is gone and the factory mostly torn down but the silos still stand and are still used to store sugar from other factories.  This is a photo from 1985 just after the plant was closed.

I was inspired to add some more scenery by a recently discovered artifact from my previous layout. 

George Booth
Director of Everything, The New Great Western Railway
http://users.frii.com/gbooth/Trains/index.htm

I’m working on the final structure for the Windsor, Colorado sugar beet factory.   Windsor used a beet loading structure called a “high line”.  Although it’s not a common thing to model, I thought you may be interested in following along as I build it.

George Booth
Director of Everything, The New Great Western Railway
http://users.frii.com/gbooth/Trains/index.htm