Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Michigan Interstate Railroad. We hope you have a safe and fun time with family and friends.

Q-GRPH-27 ties down at Bay Yard for the 8 hour no call window during the Thanksgiving. Later this evening a new crew will take the train to Port Huron.

Mid November Update

Weather down here in Texas today is cold, rainy, and overcast which makes for the perfect time to provide my Mid November Update. The last few weeks have been alot of fun around the house and on the "Clair".



MCIS SD70ACe 7050 leads the M-BAPH-10 out of Bay Yard towards Port Huron.



Fort Worth Train Show - Will Rogers Coliseum 

 


Tug and I prior to going into the show.



Grandpa and Tug checking out train photos and other memorabilia.

 

A CN / Grand Trunk Western consist in Texas.... Those new Intermountain SD40-2s look and run fantastic!

  Last weekend was the annual Fort Worth Train show at the Will Roger Coliseum (Amon Carter Event Center). This show hosts a ton of local modular layouts (A hit with my son) and dealers selling consigned and new products. I was very impressed with both the Forest Hill and Fort Worth train shows this year in Tarrant County. The same vendor that I had picked up five cars from at the Forest Hill Train Show was in attendance so I had the opportunity to pick up another nine cars needed for customers served on the railroad. 

Picked Up: 

2 Atlas Pressuraide Hoppers - Customer: Huron Mills 

2 Walthers Plastic Hoppers - Customer: ThermoPak Industries 

2 Athearn 20,900 RTC tank cars - Bridge traffic 

2 Atlas 3560 Hoppers - Customer: AmCan Salt 

1 Intermountain Cylindrical Hopper - Customer: Michigan Agricultural Commodities

Y-BA04-08 bringing the new online cars back to Bay Yard from Lake State Railway Interchange.



Layout Update

Along with the train show I have been working diligently to complete the basic scenery on the east end of Bay Yard. The most recent addition to the scene was SuperTrees trees. For this area I decided to use the 60 second tree method with spray paint and hair spray versus matte medium. One of these tree batches I will try out the glue method using scenic cement but with my time limited every shortcut helps balance time working on the railroad.

Enjoy the pictures - hope Santa Claus will bring me Siliflor grass tufts to help finish the scene transitioning into the helix.

East Yard lead into Bay Yard - the Smith & Sons ballast blends turned out really nice.

Coming out of the helix - just beyond the curve is the east switch to Bay Yard and Chessie Junction.

Looking east from the yard lead - the whole in the backdrop represnets the lower level continous run / Lake State Railway Interchange.




MCIS SD70ACe rumbling through the newly added foilage.

 

L to R - East yard lead, Main 1, Main 2, Industry track into Lakes Forest Products

Engineers view through the newly forested section east of Bay Yard between the M-15 overpass and helix entrance. This is also the beginning of the continous grade out of the Saginaw River Valley up to Upper Huron, so as you can imagine the prime movers would be singing.   


Everyone stay safe going into the holidays and stay tuned for my next update around Thanksgiving.

GM

Early November Update

Over the past week the east end of Bay Yard has begun to take on its own identity with basic scenery installed.

The wet/wet process continues to be a great straight forward method, as long as you have your materials ready to go. Working in two foot sections progress can be scene right away!

             

















                                     Overview of work area

Ballast

The ballast being used is Smith & Sons #50 limestone in light and dark shades. This material is real rock and great to work with, even though this is technically n scale ballast I like the finer grain.

Lakes Forest Products

This is the first customer in place ready for full scenery. Centerbeams and double door boxcars will frequent the facility so solid pavement for unloading was needed. This particular scene I used Busch's flexible pavement adhesive roll. After templating with paper I cut the sheet, removed the backing, and pressed it into place..... If only gift wrapping was this easy....

I need just a bit more of the material to complete the pavement between the mainline and siding. 

Stay tuned for another update this weekend!

GM