This may be nothing new but may be of benefit to beginning  modelers.

The model Loveland yard on the Great Western Railway has been operational for close to 4 years now but little scenery or detailing has been done.  It’s been mostly unweathered track, Homasote with dirt paint and a photo covered engine house mockup.

Ken K wrote:

With beets, coal and covered hoppers full of chemicals being delivered, and freight cars of finished product being shipped the factory should be fun to switch.

Yes, I greatly enjoy the sugar factories.  They provide huge amounts of traffic and use many car types. For those that are interested, I will describe the three factories on my Great Western layout and how they are switched.

Photos of the in-progress modeling can be found on my website.  

I recently added coal pits to the Loveland and Windsor sugar beet factories.   Coal was stored there for use in the factory boilers.

The first comment has the details.

The following is a series of photos showing how I switch cars using “tab waybills”.  In this case, the waybills are ¾” Avery labels stuck on both sides of fender washers (two cycle waybills).  Enjoy or ignore, the choice is yours.

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

The last beet train before Christmas rumbles past the Birds elevator and crosses I-25 on its way to Loveland. It is a long held tradition in Loveland that bad boys and girls will get a rotten sugar beet in their Christmas stocking instead of coal. You better be good!

One of the signature scenes on the Great Western in northern Colorado is the spot where the GW crosses I-25 just south of US 34 near Loveland. It is named Birds after a local farmer.  Besides the really neat overpass that the GW runs across, there is a fairly unique grain elevator.  No commercial models of this type exist (I think) so I scratch built a version of it.  As far as I know, there were two on the GW, maybe more.  I’m sure they may be more in Colorado.

Prototype photos taken in 1985. 

I’ve been using Evan Designs "Model Builder" software to make building mock ups to fill in some empty spaces until I get time for serious scratch building.  Thanks to Rick for mentioning this product when he posted his motel scenes.  The following comments show some of them.  

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

I needed some control panels at various locations on the layout to control powered switch machines.  Panels on previous layouts were done with painted Masonite and colored tape.  Workable but not very sophisticated, especially when labels were needed.  My current control panels were created with a CAD package (Cadrail 9), printed on regular printer paper and laminated at a local Staples office supply store.  Laminating provides needed protection and stiffness.

The prototype Great Western Railway had a large number of drop bottom gondolas for hauling sugar beets. They started with 150 small wooden gondolas in the early 1900s and increased their capacity with wooden racks on the top edges.  In 1949, the GWR started buying used steel drop bottom gondolas to replace the wooden ones and eventually had a fleet of 188 units.  All were sold for scrap starting in 1979 when trucks became the predominate method of hauling beets.