Large Scale Central

Ken Brunt's Mill re-homed on the C.V.S.Ry

Modeling
#1

Last spring at Ken’s RR Estate sale, people were encouraged to take buildings. I thought it was fitting that I take “Radder’s Milling & Grinding”. It was still in pretty good shape except for a few loose stones and needing paint. It sat on my patio for over a year waiting for a spot on my RR. Last week while working on the Rust Garden I noticed a perfect spot for it.

The last few days I have been staying indoors due to thick wildfire smoke. I used the time to repair and paint the mill. I also added lighting and cut a black PVC board base for it.

Today the smoke lifted a bit, so I spent the afternoon getting the lighting buss working on the side track and preparing the site. Late this afternoon the mill was planted.

This doesn’t add any new car spots since this track was previously used as overflow for Walk Landing Trans-Load, however it does change the switching making it a little more difficult. Now the Trans-Load has only one car spot, and on the same track, Radder’s Mill has 3 spots. This will likely result in the need to move the cars from the mill out of the way in order to switch the tans-load :smiley:

Late this afternoon the sun actually came out and was almost the normal color! I took the opportunity to grab some shots of the re-homed mill building…

This shot shows the trans-load spot in relation to the mill spots…

Next up is restoring the garden to the right of the cars…

I thought about re-naming the mill, but I already have Brunt Coal and the misspellings on the sign make me smile and remind me of Ken…

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2023: The Year in Review
#2

Jon;
The building really looks nice on its new site.
Best, David Meashey

#3

Sure looks good there!
Great memories…

#4

That looks like it belongs there!

#5

Perfect, John. You said an industry needed to be there in that wye, and that’s the perfect building.

#6

Good job Jon.
It is always good to see buildings etc. rehomed from our friends railroads that have become Fallen Flags.
I have several items from friends railroads, that are no more, on the Shasta Pacific and whenever I see them it brings a memory and a smile.

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#7

While working out in the garden today I decided to make a few changes. The fact that the front door had a unrealistic step down bothered me and I wanted the loading area to be bigger, so…

I moved the concrete pieces that were the loading platform and used them as steps and replaced the them with a larger block. I also added more moss ‘grass’.

While I was at it I reconfigured Walk Landing Trans-Load. Originally it was designed for two 1:24 cars with a staggered loading platform on both sides. It never quite looked right with a 1:20.3 car set out there, so I consolidated both platforms into one long one and dressed things up with ballast stone…

Tomorrow I’ll weed the moss and finish the driveway at the trans-load. Then I need to decide If I move down to Wall and Coal Dump Curve, of try and recover the plants buried in weeds near Deep Cut!

in any case, other than the color of the lighting (too orange) I’m going to call this one done too!

#8

Weeding moss is a tedious process best done lying on your belly :open_mouth: I finally got motivated late this afternoon to get down and get it done.

I rewarded myself for a dirty job well done by running a few trains out on the line and taking a few pics. The new mill really changes the view. Looking Southwest at Walk Landing Trans-Load and Radder’s Milling & Grinding…

Looking Southeast from the Rust Garden…

#9

Jon, about how many total footage of track do you have? And is it a sense that it is enough or want more, or too much?

#10

Ahh, memories of good friends, and preservation of those memories…
Bruce sent me his rendition of my shop/garage, by way of Ken Brunt.
Ken passed away before he could deliver it to Ottawa.
Well; it finally arrived here, and Mike Hamer; of the OVGRS “Mike’s Blogs” of the OVGRS web page has made repairs to it. See it on the OVGRS web page links… www.ovgrs.ca
FJM

#11

Mike did a wonderful job of repairs. (Unfortunately it fell of the cart when I was transporting it, so there was a lot of work to do!)

Glad it finally made it.

#12

I’ve not measured it, but I do have a speedometer car, so that sounds like a something I should know. Maybe I’ll run it today.
In any case, it’s not a lot by comparison to most other layouts I’ve run on. I’ll guess less than 400 feet total based on how much track I bought initially.

More or too much? I had plans for a few expansions that I have cancelled because we will probably move from here when I retire, which hopefully is pretty soon. I’m definitely not building on the ground ever again. It was fine when I was younger, but the last few years it has been very difficult for me to get up and down to do maintenance. Even resetting a derailment can be tough.

There is enough track that I can spend several hours switching cars, but it does not have a continuous run. For me, at this stage, it’s enough to enjoy, but a bit too much to maintain.

#13

Jon,
I hear you and concur! Getting old is not for sissies. :confused:

#14

OK - You motivated me to get out my spedometer car and measure the layout :smiley:

There is a little margin of error since my speedometer is set for 24" wheels and the Aristo wheels on the car measure 23.673" in 1:20.3 scale.

After running the car over all of the track I came up with this…

Total track indoor and outdoor is 1.6 scale miles or 416 actual feet. Pretty close to my estimate.

Of that 1.1 scale miles (286 actual feet) is main line including wye tails and the balloon track. .2 scale miles or 52 actual feet is indoor sidings and .3 scale miles or 78 actual feet is outdoor sidings.

After typing this up I should know, for the record, how much of the mainline is indoors Vs. Outdoors. Now that the car is set-up and on line, that’s a quick run out and back to get the break down.

EDIT: I re-calibrated the speedometer to the exact wheel diameter. Made quite a difference. It now measures about 27% less. I only did the main line which now measures .8 scale miles or 208 actual feet.

#15

Jon;
My “Copy” of your Rust Garden, finally got weeded today. My Brother is still visiting, and wanted a short project to do.
He weeded the Rust Garden, but took all the “Rusty Junk”, as he called it. out, and piled it beside the Garden…suggesting that I should take it to the junk dealer and get cash for all its weight…!!
I’l wait until he goes West, and home, then Mike Hamer car return the “Junk” to its proper home…
My dear brother (Younger by 3 years) did give the garden a healthy layer of “Rust Colored” mulch…
I hope to arrange a picture, once everything gets back to whatever is “Normal”

#16

Brothers always have such “helpful” suggestions! Mine (8 yrs older) has been telling me whet to do since I was about 6. He loves to tell me what “junk” I should get rid of too!

#17

I should probably start a new thread for this, but it’s related since this structure also came from Ken’s estate.

As people were packing up, no one showed any interest in this PIKO water tank, so I decided to bring it home too. It was sitting on our back patio when we had our house painted last summer. The power washing crew decided it was a good idea to power wash the gutters and ended up spewing mud and leaves over my entire railroad. This is what the mill and tank from Ken’s looked like that afternoon…

They started cleaning up with the power washer and blasted more parts into oblivion before I screamed at them to stop. I’m lucky that I didn’t commit murder that afternoon!

Being motivated by how nice the mill came out with a few minor repairs and fresh paint, I decided the tank was deserving of the same treatment. Nearly all the glue joints had failed at this point and Ken’s paintwork was failing. I re-glued what parts I could find and fabricated replacements for others then gave the entire structure a good coat of paint, then detailed the trim. This is what it looked like yesterday afternoon before taking on repair of the spout…

I fabricated a new pivot for the spout and painted it and the support structure. Got it installed last night, but didn’t take any photos. I hope to get it planted today at Pine Summit. I’ll take some beaty shots of it once planted and post them here.

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#18

Got the refurbished tank planted today. I placed it at the top of the long grade, a place I call Pine Summit. The structure will now be known as Pine Tank. I got a train out to pose with it and took a bunch of pictures…

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#19

:rooster: :rooster: :rooster: EXCELLENT :rooster: :rooster: :rooster:

Only adding the :rooster:’ s so I can meet the 20 character limit!

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#20

Good on ya Jon for saving those structures and keeping memories alive.