I'm Back!
After nearly 5 months of working on the HO-Scale Visalia shelf layout in my office/work room, https://visaliaelectric.blogspot.com ) I am back to working on the RGS 1st District. Rather than work on the elephant in the room, bridge 45A and the surrounding scenery, I decided to start with a couple of smaller projects.
The Dallas Depot/Section House
March 9, 2025
Back in July of last year, I introduced the addition of "Dallas" to the layout using a bit of modeler's license. The thought process that went into adding Dallas was covered in Update #34. The scene includes a large milling company that was once a fish processing operation on the late Paul Scholes Pelican Bay Railway & Navigation Company and a small depot or section house from Bruce Hanley's old layout. The fish processing plant was scratch built, the depot/section house was a built from a Wild West Models Track Side Warehouse kit.
Here is the depot as received.
When I got the depot, the removable roof was just starting to show some signs of warping. Over the winter, the warping got worse. It turned out that while the roof was sealed on one side, it wasn't on the other (inside). When building with wood, I normally add extra bracing and seal both sides of all the sheet material (basswood) before assembly. This probably wasn't a problem for Bruce since his layout was located inside the house but it was for me. The 1st District is located in a converted 3-car garage and is subject to a wide range of temperatures and some changes in humidity.
My first thought was to disassemble the roof and add some bracing. Once I had the roof apart, as shown below, I gave up on that idea. Instead, I decided to replace the laser-cut basswood with styrene using the old parts as patterns.
Here is the depot with it's new roof. The main roof was made from .060" styrene. Cutting the two panels was easy. The roof over what I assume is a mud room was made using .040" styrene. Getting it to match up with the main roof was more of a challenge. I tried cutting the mud room roof panels to match the old parts that were designed to fit around and under the main roof but gave up after three attempts. Instead, I decided to cut a notch in the main roof and use two 1" square panels for the mud room roof. It took about 5 minutes. Not sure why it took me so long to come up with such a simple solution.
The offset door leading into the mud room addition is an interesting arrangement. I checked out the Wild West website and it appears Bruce made the addition using parts from the small boiler house included with the kit.
And here is the depot/section house ready to go on the layout. Peel & stick shingles were used on the roof instead of corrugated metal. The platform was built using "left overs" from a previous project.
A Couple of Jib Cranes
March 11, 2025
While looking for some detail parts, I came across a couple of jib cranes. Both were carefully wrapped in bubble wrap; both were in pieces and parts were missing. Rather than leaving them as they were, I decided to fix them and mount them on styrene for future use. The one on the left has a movable crane. The one of the right does not.
The Elephant - Bridge 45A
March 12, 2025
Getting Bridge 45A in place seemed like the logical place to start when getting back to work on the layout. Without it, operations were restricted south of Vance Junction. A considerable amount of time was spent carving and cutting away excess Sculptamold from around the bent supports. Eventually, the bridge settled back into proper alignment.
The next step is to get a coat of earth colored paint over the Sculptamold and apply some basic ground cover.
As always your comments, suggestions & questions are welcome
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