Large Scale Central

Valley Power comes online

Modeling
#1

Well I’ve alluded to it a couple of times and those that have been to the KVRwy over the last couple of years have seen the mockups, but I’m thinking its far enough along to start showing some of the work being done at Valley Power on the Southern Branch of the Kaskaskia Valley Railway. This is an industry in the basement that allows operations with, or independent of, the outside portion of the railroad.

The objective is to create a large overpowering industry that seems to be much more than what you can see, and actually only model the rail transfer portion. My idea was to try to create a conglomerate of buildings that all the walls of brick and concrete block have been painted the same to give it a uniform color and show its growth and additions through many years and eras of construction. Valley Power is a coal fired power plant that is a receiver of the coal that is mined on the KVRwy and processed at the Owl’s Bend Chance Coal Processing Plant.

Currently there is just the lead off the switch back headed to “Shadow Box” and the trackage going into the boiler house. Supplies will be delivered here, along with heavy machinery going in and out of the power plant.

You can see the inside of the supply dock with a fork lift carrying a large valve or pressure release vent.

And a close up of the signage of the roll up door and surrounding area.

A turnout will be installed at about the front of the engine where the embankment falls away.

It will be to the coal dump and should have a turnout off of the dump trestle for the hauling off of the ashes. This will be in the brown (that’s actually a color of paint called coal) area.

A lot of the work, so far, was working out away from the wall, so I didn’t destroy the rest of the work while building the structure.

The valve, roof blower motors and ladders with cages came from some supplies AndyC provided. I think they really add to the industrial look of the area. There is a long way to go on this project, but its been under construction for 2 years and progressed from plywood to concrete block buildings since the middle of December, 2008. The brick work and division stone is from Precision Products and the concrete block is carved with a hot knife on 1/4 inch styrofoam.

#2

WOW - What a great photo spot! I love how even in the long shot it looks like the building goes on forever. Great idea and nicely executed :smiley:

#3

Whoa, great job Ric. More pics…
Dave

#4

Dave, I don’t have much more to show at this time. Ask questions and I’ll try to answer. Here is the left side past the boundary of the industry.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090117%20029.jpg)

Here is the right side past the boundary of the industry.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090117%20030.jpg)

Here is a picture of the unfinished interior of the loading dock at the boiler house with a flash on, so you can see there really isn’t much detail. The floor still has to be put in.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090117%20033.jpg)

The two pipes on the left of the 3 on the loading dock are the water supply line to our house and the anti-rattle stand pipe.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090117%20001.jpg)

I couldn’t hide them, so I just put them in the scene. We have hot water heat and the boiler and hot water heater are directly behind the brick wall. Along the basement ceiling and in the area where I’ve put the stack pipes is all kinds of plumbing. You get kind of blinded by a flourescent light when looking up at this area, so detail is not that necessary.

#5

Beautiful work. The details are great. And working the household plumbing into the scene…brilliant :cool:
Ralph

#6

Neat. I remember you working on that when we visited. You’ve made a lot of progress and it is looking great. I love all those details.

#7

Thanks, guys. The foam is fun to work with and quite easy. I pre-cut the pieces and worked from the big major panel in the center out in all directions, since I felt that was the piece I needed to get the concrete block pattern, level on. I took a lot of the pre-cut panels with us when we went to visit my Mom in Oklahoma. Sat at the kitchen table and scrawled the pattern on the foam as we visited and socialized. (I get quite bored with the small talk, if nothing productive is being accomplished). One of the best discoveries during this was glue I used to attach the foam to the plywood and then the foam to other foam. I was reading in MR about attaching HO track with latex caulking and trying to come up with a workable glue. Standing in front of the adhesives at the hardware store, I saw ceramic tile cement and remembered I had about a gallon left in a big plastic bucket in the basement from an entrance ceramic tile installation. Used that glue and that process of a very thin layer put on with one of those saw edge applicators. That gallon of glue was taken out of the big bucket (yes, I now have another plastic bucket, don’t know if you can ever enough of those plastic buckets when working on a garden railroad) and put it in a plastic coffee can. The glue was easy to apply, easy to clean up and holds well. The plastic coffee can made it easy to just take enough out for what you needed and then close back up. The first layer of foam sometimes took a little ingenuity to get it hold until it set up (about a half hour), but after that straight pins stuck right through the foam did a great job. That ceramic tile cement was like trying to pull your foot out of the mud. It has almost a suction factor of holding to a flat clean surface.

#8

Nice pictures… :slight_smile:

#9

Very cool and great work with the foam…it looks real good!
:wink:

#10

Nice work, makes want to get out in the garage and start carving foam :wink:

#11

Wow that looks great and a great description of the technique–thanks

#12

Very nice! Good creative use of indoor space!

#13

Wow. I miss an ops session and a new industry breaks out.

#14
Tom Ruby said:
Wow. I miss an ops session and a new industry breaks out.
I'm just glad we have a guide when we have to negotiate that maze in the basement. Nice work, Ric......;)
#15

I occasionally get lost in the basement. I keep looking for the switch down to Owl’s Bend up by the wall where the others are.

#16

Ric is the only one that understands the basement part of his layout. :wink: I do wish I could do something like that in mine. It really is pretty neat.

#17

AHHHHHHHHH, Bruce, not quite true…

I understand his basement, but, I go down there more often… It did take a while, tho…

And, then, every once in a while, there he goes and adds more trackage…

#18

Looks good and great idea. Nice to have a place to run trains in the winter especially when its cold and snowy. I wish had enough space to do an indoor layout.

#19

I’ve completed the dumping tracks and coal auger pit of the Valley Power enough to show some progress and thought I would share it. The auger pit is full as both coal cars sit empty and ready to be moved out.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20003.jpg)

The EBT car is moved to allow some better views from different angles.

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20004.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20005.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20006.jpg)

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20009.jpg)

Here is an overall look of this part of the basement -

(http://www.lscdata.com/users/rgolding/090302%20010.jpg)

#20

Ric:

Really nice use of a difficult space!

I particularly like your use of a variety of retaining wall materials. It provides a ‘built onto over time’ appearance that doesn’t exist when a single material is used.

Happy RRing,

Jerry