Mopac Bagnell Branch

[peggyrothschild]

Glad you enjoyed it. Here’s the boxcar with the ACI label, COTS and U-1 code that brings the car up to my 1979 layout date.

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[peggyrothschild]

Dick Ryker suggested a poultry processing plant on the 1979 branch. I liked his suggestion as these plants are usually found in smaller cities and it gives me some outbound frozen chicken loads for my new ART 57′ mechanical reefers. I still need to add more roof details, a/c for the front office, paint it and add signage for Tyson.

Photos are definitely a ‘work in progress’. This is a Pikestuff Milton A. Corp kit reworked to fit between the tracks and highway in Russellville.
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[peggyrothschild]

I bought this factory painted Kadee car off ebay after a discussion with Kevin Love on what kind of flatcar could I use for an inbound lumber load into Russellville. Kevin remembered not a flatcar but 40′ Frisco boxcars being used in this service so that gave me an excuse to put another 40′ boxcar in service on the local. The original model came with a white dash line on the lower carload but none of the prototype photos I found showed this so I removed it with a decal remover. I then airbrushed the car with Dullcote and used colored pencils to denote the door scrapes and wear and tear to the sides. Oil paints mixed with odorless turpentine was brushed over the sides and ends. A single edged razor blade was used to scrape up some of the lettering.

Finally the signature 1979s COTS, U-1 and ACI labels were added. I need to find a SLSF weigh station and give the car an updated light weight.

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[peggyrothschild]

Here’s a Tyson poultry plant update. Added some roof top details from the Walthers roof details kit. As you can see three of the vents were glued on the side of the building just to add some details to the sides. The Walthers kit also includes three roof top air conditioners. I added the smallest one to the roof and the medium size one is sitting on the ground next to the middle of the building.

Tyson signs were found using a Google search and saved in Photoshop. I then copied them to a Word document and printed them off. These were attached to the building using doubleface scrap booking tape. Not sure I want to keep the blue walls and may spray the building white at some point but they really don’t look all that bad…. Windows need some glazing and blinds though.

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[peggyrothschild]

Christmas cards are done, presents are wrapped so I decided to pour myself a glass of wine and switch the basement industries before the local was annulled over the holidays..no Rule G on this railroad.

In these shots the local has just pulled two empties out of the mill at Olean and is headed back to Jeff City. On his trip back to ‘Jeff’ he’ll pull a Frisco 40′ boxcar out of the lumber yard at Russellville and pull a load of frozen chickens out of the Tyson poultry plant there as well. Two empty ARMN 57′ reefers were set out on the way down the branch and these will be spotted for poultry loading when the load is pulled.

Russellville generally involves 30″- 40″ of switching on most of the trips due to having a mill, lumber yard and poultry plant to serve. Any business for Lohman, Russellville or Olean is set out on the trip down the branch and worked on the way back. A 50′ empty M-I boxcar will be pulled at Lohman from Producers Milling and then to MX125 to tie up and have a few days off.

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[peggyrothschild]

I came across a can of primer white this afternoon and decided this was a sign to hide the blue walls of the new Tyson plant. After the paint dried I weathered the structure with some brown and black oil paints on the roof and around the various air ducts and vents. I added plastic glazing to the windows and some blinds for a little interior detailing. I have absolutely no idea what a real poultry plant looks like and google images searches only returned interior processing pictures. So this is my best ‘swag’.

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[bargetanika]

The static grass makes that layout great. I need to quit being “chicken” and do it too.

[clemmie_doris12]

It looks like a reasonable representation to me. I see lots of these in SW Missouri.

[peggyrothschild]

@Patrick wrote:

The static grass makes that layout great. I need to quit being “chicken” and do it too.

Pat,
Fellow model railroader, Clark Propst, commented to me in an email once the two biggest enhancements to our hobby has been DCC and static grass. I tried static grass a couple of times and they were complete failures 1) I was using the applicator to far away from the surface so my ‘grass’ wasn’t standing up and 2) my mixture of water and glue was too thin so the grass would settle in it and wouldn’t be able to stand up.

Once I figured out to hold the applicator 1 1/2″ from the surface and get a mix of 60% Elmer’s glue and 40% water things started coming together. I also learned to combine several different grass colors and lengths so the layout didn’t end up resembling a putting green when it was done.

The last trick I picked up from Jason Klocke is to spray the static grass with hair spray and sprinkle some Woodland Scenics Fine Turf onto the wet hair spray. The turf will naturally collect on the top of the grasses and resemble seed heads on weeds. You can also add flowers using this method using yellow or white flowers sold by Scenic Express.

[James Pruitt]

Beautiful work Charlie! The roads look fantastic. The width looks right and the detail on them is great. Overall the scenery is really enjoyable to look at. I really do like the RI boxcar too. Nice!

If I can make just one suggestion. It is the thing that always sticks out to ruin an otherwise professional scenery job. Get the structures INTO the layout and not sitting on top.

Brian

[peggyrothschild]

@SD40-2C wrote:

Beautiful work Charlie! The roads look fantastic. The width looks right and the detail on them is great. Overall the scenery is really enjoyable to look at. I really do like the RI boxcar too. Nice!

If I can make just one suggestion. It is the thing that always sticks out to ruin an otherwise professional scenery job. Get the structures INTO the layout and not sitting on top.

Brian

I agree, I’d just weathered the building and plopped it down and took the photos. I have some school clay (the kind that doesn’t dry) I use to close this gaps. I’ll get some new shots up over the next day.

[bargetanika]

Since you change those buildings out, you could put some loose shrubbery pieces around the edges of the buildings for weeds.

I’m glueing very little shrubbery and under growth down on my layout since it is coming out in two years. I’ll be able to save most of it. Same thing with the tree lines along the wall, they are foam boards painted green with foliage applied, just loose leaning agsinst the wall. They will get reused on the next layout too.

[peggyrothschild]

Been a while since posting any updates. During the operating sessions I have two guys on the MP local and two running the RI yard. The RI guys were getting done earlier than the local. To increase their switching I added this modern elevator so covered hoppers could be loaded. The older elevator loads only 40′ Boxcars. Theory being the MFA knew boxcars were being phased out so they added the Rix kit and bins.

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[clemmie_doris12]

Wow, you put those kits together real fast. Looks good. Those Rock Island guys did need more to do.

[peggyrothschild]

Here’s the other elevator I added. Walthers Praire elevator.

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You think there might be a few chiggers in those tall grasses?

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